Every year, the stuttering community celebrates International Stuttering Awareness Day on October 22. It’s a day for people across the world to recognize stuttering, educate others who don’t stutter and raise awareness of an often isolating difference.

For the last 12 years, the community has further celebrated by participating in a three week online conference about stuttering, hosted by the International Stuttering Association (ISA.) The conference is held from Oct 1-Oct.22 and can be found linked to the ISA site.

This year, the theme of the conference is stuttering pride. Yes, we can take pride in the fact that we stutter, that we’re part of a huge community that empowers each other and that can take responsibility for educating others about stuttering.

The conference needs to hear from you, people who stutter, loved ones of people who stutter and people generally interested in the stuttering community. The conference is seeking submissions of papers, audio or video around the theme of stuttering pride. Specific information can be found here at the ISAD section of the ISA site.

Won’t you consider writing something about your stuttering experience? Or sharing an audio or video message? It can go a long way towards the goal of educating others and creating a world that better understands stuttering.