Allergy Awareness Week kicks off 16-22 May

The theme for this year’s Allergy Awareness Week (16-22 May) is ‘Allergies — no walk in the park’.

Do you find that one of the hardest parts of dealing with an allergy is having people take it seriously? For most of us, once our - or our kids' - allergies are diagnosed and managed, we look like anyone else (although more healthy I think!). So the focus is then on convincing people that it is, indeed, a condition that must be taken seriously.

The aim of Allergy Awareness Week is draw to people's attention the significant impact allergies have on individuals and families.

Can you help?


In order for Allergy Awareness Week to be a success, we need you — members of our allergic community — to get behind us by:

• Contacting your school or community library to see if they can put up a display
• Volunteering yourself to be interviewed by your local media to highlight the impact allergies have on your life. This can be any type of allergy, and the focus is on how the support of those around you made the difference.

If you can help Allergy New Zealand with schools and libraries, please email mail@allergy.org.nz.

If you can help with our media campaign, please email me inga@allergy.org.nz.

The best way to show the rest of our communities that we need their support is to show how this makes the allergic journey so much easier to travel. So if you have some good experiences, please share them below and hopefully it will inspire others to pass on the goodwill.

Inga Stünzner
Information and Communication
Allergy New Zealand

Travel to Fiji - a call for help!

We received an email through our website about travelling to Fiji and dealing with a food allergy.

Do you have any suggestions?

"I have booked a holiday in fiji. I assumed a 'five star' resort with many resteraunts would be able to accomodate food allergies. They tell me they cannot accomodate such dietry requirements (egg, dairy and nut free except coconut)and have not yet let me know if they can provide a kitchen for me...

They also advise me that the nearest hospital is three hours away and that helicopters do not operate after sunset.

If anyone has personal experiance with Fiji I would be glad to hear from them. As far as I am concerned we are going (complete with emergency drugs and staple foods). Please can you advise me on five star resourts and their usual abilities?? Where to go from here??
Appreciate your response. Holiday is in July/August 2010".

If you have any suggestions (constructive), please post away.