In August 2013, VIVA! Communications offered pro-bono support to the Epilepsy Foundation to encourage Novocastrians living with a disability and epilepsy, their families and carers to attend their free ‘Epilepsy Know Me, Support Me’ event via local media and community outreach.

Novocastrians will be among Australia’s first communities to benefit from the DisabilityCare Australia-funded program, ‘Epilepsy Know Me, Support Me’.

Designed by the Epilepsy Foundation in partnership with the Bendigo Community Health Service, Victoria and Flinders University, South Australia, the innovative program designed to improve epilepsy management, was canvassed in two sessions at Noah’s on the Beach, Newcastle.

This week, VIVA! Communications received the following letter from Graeme Shears, CEO of the Epilepsy Foundation:

“Dear Kirsten

Thanks again for your fantastic work with promoting our recent epilepsy event in Newcastle. I was very impressed with how effective you were in such a short time and appreciate your pro-bono support.

Your proactivity in identifying and securing additional local campaign spokespeople in a territory with which we are largely unfamiliar, and developing their individual case studies, attracted extensive media coverage of our ‘Epilepsy Know Me, Support Me’ forum and resources.

Securing prime-time television coverage of our forum on Newcastle’s premier news network, NBN, involving an interview with Paralympics aspirant, Dayne Robertson, who is living with epilepsy, was a highlight of the campaign. In addition, the widespread media coverage you secured on various Newcastle-based newspapers and radio stations, including the Austereo network, was equally impressive.

The media outcomes achieved helped to create heightened awareness of, and interest in our forum and the new, national resources available to those living with epilepsy, their carers and the public at large.

On behalf of the Epilepsy Foundation, I wish to extend a huge thank you to the team at VIVA, please pass on my thanks to all involved.

Yours sincerely

Graeme Shears”