Eczema. What, a bit of dry skin? How can that ever be connected to the glitzy world of PR?
It’s a question I’ve been asked many times and is guaranteed to get my hackles up.
Two points. One, eczema is so much more than a bit of dry skin. Two, PR isn’t glitzy AND it couldn’t be more perfect for PR.
Having lived with dry, itchy and unsightly skin since the age of 14, I’ve got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about eczema. I could write for hours about it. In fact, I have. In 1994 at the age of 24, I spilled my every emotion and thought about being locked in a skin that felt too small for my body into a very personal account about living with eczema.
Suzanne’s eczema flared in her 20’s
Having lived with dry, itchy and unsightly skin since the age of 14, I’ve got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about eczema. I could write for hours about it. In fact, I have. In 1994 at the age of 24, I spilled my every emotion and thought about being locked in a skin that felt too small for my body into a very personal account about living with eczema.
Little did I know that this article would be read by millions thanks to extracts appearing in women’s magazines, in the Daily Mail, the Express and online. It even led to me appearing on BBC’s Watchdog Health check and Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show, amongst other broadcast appearances.
In 2002 the National Eczema Society enlisted Approach to do the media work for National Eczema Week. For me, a dream account.
For the next six years, we managed the PR for the Society, being its reactive press office and proactive campaign team.
Launching National Eczema Week in 2003 with Fiona Phillips
Today, I am a trustee of the National Eczema Society and join a group of dedicated professionals from the legal, health care and voluntary sectors to support and guide the charity.
Talking about and supporting the cause puts a fire in my belly like nothing else. My passion for changing perceptions, supporting parents of children with eczema, listening to people living with the condition and using my own experiences to educate health care professionals, embodies every aspect of effective public relations.
Eczema is debilitating. It’s misunderstood and it’s miserable for every person it affects.
For me, it has been life changing – horrific in my teens and twenties but ultimately led me to connect and communicate with people in ways I could never have imagined.
The Approach PR get involved with eczema fundraising
I’m proud to say that eczema is a big part of who I am and is without doubt, worth every one of my volunteer hours that I hope will help make a difference to how it is perceived and managed in the future.
Knowing that in my teens might just have made the relentless itch easier to live with…
