Awareness Days

There are two dedicated motor neurone disease awareness days held every June. These two days, Blue Cornflower Day (June 20th) and Global MND Awareness Day (June 21st) are held on the same days every year, and serve to bring awareness to the disease and the reality of living with it.

Blue Cornflower Day is a national day of awareness, which seeks to highlight the lived experience of those with MND and advocate for improved support and care needs.

The blue cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) has a fragile appearance but a hardy nature, and these characteristics have made the flower the global symbol of hope and resilience in the face of MND. Like the cornflower, people living with MND continue to thrive and fight while faced with the great adversity of this devastating disease.

Intentionally placed on June 20th, the day before Global MND Awareness Day, Blue Cornflower Day places the needs of those living with the disease today front and center of the conversation.

Today, there are 2,688 Australians living with MND. Progression varies for each person, and the average life expectancy after diagnosis is between 2 and 3 years.

Over those 2-3 years, a person living with MND will need support from a multi-disciplinary team of allied health professionals, and tend to rely upon vital assistive equipment to maintain a quality of life. MND Victoria, alongside the state associations, support people living with MND to access the best care available while advocating for systematic improvements.

You can read more about our current advocacy priorities here.

This Blue Cornflower Day we invite the community to connect with what MND is like to live with, and amplify the voices of those who may not be able to speak for themselves, by holding an educational event or fundraiser in support of greater care and support.

MND Global Awareness Day takes places every year on the 21st of June, coinciding with the solstice, to express the hope that one day there will be a turning point in the search for a cause, treatment, and cure of this disease.

MND Associations across the globe use the day to raise awareness of the disease to the general public, honour those who are and have lived with the disease, and collectively hope for a better future.

When a person is diagnosed with MND, a whole community of people around them also officially find themselves living with the disease. The road to diagnosis can be long, complicated, and scary, and receiving a diagnosis for a progressive disease without a cure brings a lot of different emotions.

Every MND Global Awareness Day we turn our attention to the turning points that have been and are still to come in the forms of care, cause, treatments, and a cure for MND.

We acknowledge and thank the researchers who are dedicated to improving outcomes for those with MND, and celebrate every piece of progress.