Lauder Fellow Matty Fisher leads international awareness campaign for World IBD Day

Lauder Fellow Matty Fisher leads international awareness campaign for World IBD Day As part of his Lauder Fellowship work plan. Matty Fisher launched Jews with IBD (@jewswithibd), an initiative aimed at increasing support and raising awareness of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) within the global Jewish community. With Ashkenazi Jews up to four times more likely to be affected by Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis, the two main forms of IBD, this initiative addresses a critical and often overlooked health issue within our community. Therefore, on World IBD Day (May 19th), Jews with IBD spearheaded a global awareness campaign under the slogan #MakeIBDVisible, encouraging individuals and organisations to share statistics and images to increase its’ profile. The campaign saw global success, with widespread participation from young Jewish communities and student unions. The 2024–2025 Lauder Fellowship cohort actively joined the campaign during their Diplomacy Summit in Tel Aviv, with representation from over a dozen countries including France, Uruguay, Australia, and America. Jewish student unions and organisations, such as JYP (Portugal), UJS (UK & Ireland), WUJS (World), the Simcha Initiative, and WJC NextGen also supported the campaign through their social media platforms. Throughout the week, the campaign shared powerful personal stories from Jewish individuals living with IBD, alongside informative graphics to improve public understanding. These efforts resulted in over 12,000 digital interactions and was featured on The Jewish News, which has an audience of over 50,000 followers. This campaign not only amplified voices within the Jewish IBD community but also demonstrated the power of youth-led advocacy to create meaningful global impact.