TAMPA, Fla. — June 25 is World Vitiligo Day. Vitiligo is an autoimmune disease that causes the skin to lose pigment. The city of Tampa will light up all bridges, old city hall, and Curtis Hixon Park in purple to spread awareness about the skin disorder.
ABC Action News in-depth reporter Anthony Hill caught up with a local vitiligo advocate to talk about a new event she’s launched to spread awareness about the skin disorder.
Tonja Johnson was hard at work planning for a traveling vitiligo exhibit called Shine the Spotlight on Vitiligo. The idea is to spread awareness about the skin disorder during vitiligo awareness month.
“This is our vitiligo exhibit Shine the Spotlight on Vitiligo where we have members of Beautifully Unblemished who have shared their stories and their journeys of living with vitiligo,” said Tonja Johnson, founder of Beautifully Unblemished.
Johnson inspires and uplifts others living with vitiligo to live up to their full potential, while also creating visibility about the skin disorder in public areas.
“It’s very important that we bring awareness to vitiligo so that individuals – when they’re out in the community – they know what it is and it lessens the stares and the whispers that we get when we’re out in the community,” said Johnson.
Johnson has firsthand experience dealing with the stares and whispers. She was diagnosed with vitiligo in 2014.
“For the first three years, I was in a state of depression – deep depression – because of the changes that were so drastically happening to my body,” said Johnson.
This exhibit will be at the C. Blythe Andrews Public Library in Tampa until Tuesday, June 25. Then, it’ll end at the Brandon Town Center Mall near Books-A-Million on Saturday, June 29 from 12 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
“Individuals were coming up and saying how much they’ve learned just by looking at the stories and seeing the individuals that are living with vitiligo and just trying to understand what those individuals are going through,” said Johnson.
