FACES: National Craniofacial Association Participates in the

5th Annual International Face Equality Week.

This year's campaign theme is #WeWillNotHide

May 15 - 19, 2023

​

"Together, we can create a world where anyone with a facial difference is free to be unapologetically themselves. In order to celebrate what makes us ‘different,’ first we must recognize that it is society that must change, not us. It is the limiting perceptions placed on faces and bodies that do not conform to the ‘norm’ that we must change,”

                                                                      - Phyllida Swift, CEO of Facial Equality International

​

Why are we Focusing on Stigma?

Right now, constant erasure leads people with disfigurements to internalize the idea that they should be hiding, when we should be accepting what people look like, and celebrating difference. 

​

This is why the ‘We Will Not Hide’ campaign will bring the face equality community together to call for:  
 

1. Visibility of visible difference on the big screen. Not simply as villains or vulnerable people. 
   See our Position Paper to call upon Hollywood and the Entertainment Industry to better represent this community. 
    

2. Visibility of the community on social media, where right now people are being censored or abused because there is not yet a safe space for the community to be seen, and to be free to express their truest selves.
    Find our input into the United Nations Report on AI, framing this issue here. 
    

3. Visibility of real stories about disfigurement. Where we see the whole person, not stereotypical, purely medical or dramatic stories. Share your facial difference story. Tell the world what you love to do & what makes you who you are. Be seen. Be heard. Be accepted.
   Tag FACES National Craniofacial Association and Face Equality International.
   Hiding should no longer have to be a coping mechanism for anyone with a facial difference. This is why this #FaceEquality week we are building solidarity around the theme of We Will Not Hide.
   
    

See the #WeWillNotHide campaign Press Release Here.

​

Find out more about the 2023 We Will Not Hide campaign here.

​

Background

Facial difference is a term used to describe a facially diverse or non-normative appearance of the neck and above. It is used to describe conditions or marks that an individual is born with, as well as changes in facial appearance that are acquired either permanently or temporarily. Face Equality is a social justice movement devoted to ensuring the facial difference or FD community can live freely, without indignity or discrimination.

​

About Face Equality International

Face Equality International was created by Dr. James Partridge OBE, founder of Changing Faces UK, with the support of nine founding members. The alliance was launched in November 2018 and now has over thirty worldwide members. Our vision is for the global facial difference community to live freely, without indignity or discrimination. In order to achieve our vision, our mission is to position face equality as a social justice movement.  Most member NGOs are condition-specific (i.e., for people with clefts, burns, craniofacial conditions, psoriasis, and other conditions) and their members have very different medical and surgical needs and treatments. But their members also face very similar psychological, cultural, and social barriers to living fulfilling lives. FEI embraces and creates space for facial differences of any kind, be they acquired, from birth, or temporary.

​