World Alzheimer Day #donotforget

First you forget what you had for breakfast, then the names of your children. A rich fulfilling life can shrivel up in just one meaningless minute.

Alzheimer is a terrible disease that not only touches the lives of the patients but also those of friends and family. The Flemish Alzheimer League is determined to make a change in these peoples’ lives and strives to make a difference each and every day.

Moved as we were by this organisation and the many lives touched by it, we decided to help them out by raising awareness and generating a conversation around this illness, free of charge and straight from the hart.

As Friday the 21st of September was called out as the National World Alzheimer Day, we saw it as the perfect opportunity to get people thinking about the subject and to sizzle the conversation.

We asked people to send out three tweets in which they repeated themselves. Each tweet ended with the hashtag #nietvergeten (#donotforget)

For instance:
Tweet 1:
Don’t forget to walk the dog when I get home #donotforget
Tweet 2:
There was something I needed to do when I got home, but what? #donotforget
Tweet 3:
I won’t forget to walk the dog, just as I won’t forget World Alzheimer Day #donotforget

To get the conversation started, everyone at These Days started spreading their ‘#donotforget – tweets’ among their followers, who picked it up as well and started sharing it on their turn. We also reached out to some well-known people including Alexander De Croo (Minister of Pensions), Sam De Bruyn (Radio host at Belgian radio station Studio Brussel), Eva Daeleman (radio host M&M and TV host), Saartje Van Den Driessche (TV-host), etc.. to help us spread the word. On the website, www.vergeetzeniet.be, we collected all the tweets with the hashtag #nietvergeten (#donotforget)

The results were great. People started sharing the message, including some very well know Belgian celebs such as Sam De Bruyn (radio host), Alexander De Croo (Minister) and Ian Thomas (teen singer). Even the radio station MNM mentioned our initiative on the radio after which radio host Eva Daeleman started sharing her #donotforget messages herself to all her followers. Lots of people were curious what the story behind the hashtag was and started asking around on Twitter, resulting in an even greater buzz. And last but not least, we received loads of compliments of people just saying ‘great job’ and the Flemish Alzheimer League thanked us big time for the awareness boost and conversation starter.