Local man, Glenn Bowden has come up with the idea of the ‘Get A Life Challenge’. Where participants are asked to deactivate facebook for a week.
Here he explains why…
A couple of years ago, a good friend of mine told me she was diagnosed with Lupus and, like most people, I had never heard of it and I admit, I kind of brushed it under the carpet.
Gradually I realised that due to the Lupus, she was unable to venture outside on sunny days etc as this caused extreme rashes on her skin.
Since then the Lupus has take hold and now she has Severe Vascular Lupus and along with her entire body covered in the skin rashes she has also suffered with hair loss and right now is in Torbay Hospital after having to have the lower part of her leg removed due to the illness.
Since then I had also found out another of my friends also has Lupus.
Here is a link to Lupus UK so you can read more about this horrible and lesser known illness
So, this is one of the reasons behind my coming up with this challenge.
With the No make up Selfie Challenge and the Ice Bucket Challenge, people had heard about the illness or disease that these challenges were raising money for, but if you asked most people in the street they would not even know what Lupus is.
The ‘Get A Life Challenge’ I came up with is ditching Facebook, de-activating for a week and doing just that, getting a life outside of the world in the palm of your hand and get out and do things that you and I take for granted but people with Lupus can not do from day to day due to their symptoms.
Ok, I am the first to admit that when I first came up with the idea I was wondering if I could actually go without Facebook for a whole week, in fact, my fiancee said I should may be only set up the Challenge for a weekend!
I stuck to my guns and set up the Challenge for a week and posted it on Facebook.
It has only been up for 24 hours and so far it has just over 60 people saying they are going to take part and has been shared through quite a few friends too.
There is nothing else you have to do other than donate and then post the snap shot of your donation when you reactivate your account on the Monday. No peer pressure to do anything you don’t feel like doing, just the fact that you will not be constantly staring into you mobile phone screen and will actually have to talk you your friends and communicate when together, remember that?? How bizarre!!
So I urge people to join the event, please share it too and the invite as many of your friends as possible to raise awareness for this lesser known illness.
https://www.facebook.com/events/341731412664423/345346782302886
Personally I am not expecting this to be anywhere near as big as the other challenges, after all, there will be no photos to look at or videos to watch but who knows, you might actually enjoy the fact that you get to socialise with your friends without constantly looking at your mobile.
To those who have joined in already and shared the event I would like to say THANK YOU..
Contributed by Glenn Bowden
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