Eight out of 10 people do not know what encephalitis is [1] and World Encephalitis Day on February 22 aims to change that.

But, we need your help!

Will you get together with friends, family and colleagues and add red to your day?

Whether it’s a red hat, a crimson dress or scarlet socks, however you decide to wear #RED4WED you’ll be supporting our life saving work.

Our limited edition World Encephalitis Day t-shirts are also available. 

Here are some more simple ways you can make #RED4WED truly memorable.

• Persuade your workplace or school to wear #RED4WED for a gold coin donation.
• Host a brain healthy breakfast or dinner for your family, friends or work colleagues and charge for your culinary skills
• Organise a neighbourhood walk with everyone wearing red, including your pets!
• Arrange for your local gym or exercise class to wear red and donate their takings for the day.
• Ask your workplace to match fund your office dress down (or up!) #RED4WED day

Other ways to get involved

• Sign up to our Thunderclap campaign! Share with your friends, family and colleagues. Help us smash our target!
• Download our handy World Encephalitis Day Fundraising Guide
• Use our posters and social media banners to tell the world you’re taking part in #worldencephalitisday
• Take an individual and/or a group photo of everyone wearing red and post it on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and be sure to use the hashtags #RED4WED #worldencephalitisday and tag us @encephalitis

Or make a donation and support our life-saving work 

For further information about fundraising and #RED4WED please email [email protected] or call us on t: +44 (0)1653 692583

This project is supported by a charitable donation from Pfizer Ltd.

We are grateful to wearelumiere.com for their continued support of this project.

[1] All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc.  Sample sizes and 2017 field work dates varied according to country (Five countries were surveyed: UK, USA, Germany, India, and Australia). By people we mean adults (aged 18+) in the general public.

The 8 out of 10 people statistic is a mean of the five countries surveyed and was calculated by The Encephalitis Society by identifying incorrect answers to the YouGov Plc survey question ‘in your own words, please type in the box below what you understand the word encephalitis to be/mean’ and reflecting this information in a recalculation of YouGov Plc’s question ‘yes I have heard of encephalitis and know what is it’.