M. Kouloumas^1
1N.G.O., Cyprus League against Rheumatism, Nicosia, Cyprus

Abstract: Everyday we experience difficulties with small things in a wide range of activities such as opening a bottle of milk or jam, using public transportation, meeting with friends at a café, watching a theatre play or a football match, having fun and so on. All those things are con-sidered to be simple and most of the time no one pays lots of attention to them.
But for people with arthritis/rheumatism the so-called “small things” are more complicated and, what’s more, these things often represent serious problems that need special consid-eration on a daily basis and even resorting to strategies to cope with them.

Small things like access to public transportation and access to buildings and to the struc-tured environment in general along with easiness in the usage of consumer goods, can have many complicated aspects for people with arthritis/ rheumatism and cause serious implications regarding their Quality of Life (QoL).

In this regard, the Cyprus League Against Rheumatism aims to promote measures capable of ensuring the rights and the QoL of people with arthritis/rheumatism. Therefore it is launching a campaign on June 2007 in order to:

a. provide information to members and staff of professional organizations.
b. raise public awareness
c. mobilize policy makers

Our campaign will focus mainly on the media. We are to prepare several related adver-tisements in both printed and electronic press and produce a TV spot which will be broad-casted at least one month before the WAD, the planned peak of this campaign. At the same time, we will organize interview opportunities and participate in TV and radio pro-grams.

Before WAD, there will be a series of meetings with Ministers, policy-makers and represen-tatives of professional groups and industries in order to inform them of the WAD theme and related activities.

We will also carry out research with the preparation of a questionnaire which will be sent to all the members of the league. The results of this survey will be presented at WAD during an official press conference where journalists, TV channels, members of the government, Ministers, policy-makers, members of the Parliament, representatives of professional groups, NGO’s representatives and people with arthritis/rheumatism. A debate with α questions/answer session will follow.

The conclusions of the survey will be officially delivered to the President of the Cyprus Re-public, the Ministers, the President of the Parliament and the chairs of the relevant Parlia-ment committees.

We expect our WAD 2007 campaign will be followed by measures ensuring the improve-ment of well-being for people with arthritis/rheumatism and people with disabilities in gen-eral. It is important that people with any form of disability are given equal opportunities in order to enjoy an active life and to participate in society as full members.