WHAT IS WORLD VOICE DAY?
World Voice Day is an annual awareness event dedicated to recognizing the importance of the human voice and raising awareness about various voice-related issues. It serves as an opportunity to acknowledge the significance of vocal health, expression, and communication. The theme for 2025 is Empower Your Voice! Awareness is a critical factor influencing early diagnosis, best treatment practices, funding for research and, hopefully, cures. World Voice Day helps support these goals. Your voice is unique and should be heard today and every day! Join us in raising awareness about spasmodic dysphonia and related voice conditions.
WRITE A HAIKU FOR WORLD VOICE DAY
mailto:voice@dysphonia.org. World Voice Day is followed by National Haiku Poetry Day on April 17, so we are encouraging our community to write a haiku about the theme Empower Your Voice! A haiku consists of three lines: Line 1 has 5 syllables, Line 2 has 7 syllables, and Line 3 has 5 syllables. You can email it to voice@dysphonia.org or post it on social media using the hashtag #WVD. Special thanks to all who have submitted already.
From Iris Miller Stetson:
The human voice is a miraculous means that many people use for expressing themselves. But, for someone like me with severe SD, my voice is often broken or absent so I’ve turned to a myriad of other ways to voice what I want to say. I’ve honed skills to communicate my thoughts and emotions through writing, music, dance, cooking, baking, gardening, hugging and more. Sometimes I have a speaking voice and at other times I don’t. But, with or without, I’m still me and proud of who I’ve worked to become and keep striving to be. All the effort I’ve made in this way has really told me who, what and how powerful I am.
All of us have hurdles in life and it takes work and a conscious effort to try to be a strong human being, able to face the challenges that life might bring our way. So, whether you can speak or not, start digging if you need to and begin discovering all the ways you can empower your voice of choice to share your thoughts, emotions and who you are. By doing this, you will not only feel more empowered but will more than likely help and strengthen others, too.
With this in mind, here is a Haiku in honor of World Voice Day 2025.
Voice gone. It’s broken
like old wind chimes without wind.
I proudly walk on.
OBTAIN A PROCLAMATION
Securing an official World Voice Day proclamation from a government office is a great way to raise awareness and attract media attention to voice disorders. The process varies by office, so be sure to contact the official’s office as early as possible, as some require requests several months in advance.
DOWNLOAD INFO ON HOW TO OBTAIN A PROCLAMATION
DOWNLOAD SAMPLE PROCLAMATION LANGUAGE
RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT VOICE ISSUES BY POSTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA
If you are active on social media, help raise awareness about spasmodic dysphonia and related voice conditions by sharing World Voice Day images on your profile. If you are comfortable, share something about your own experience of living with a voice condition. Be sure to use #WVD so we can find your post! To save an image, click on the graphic you like, and it will pop up. Then you can right click on it and save it.
