Dress up or down, funny or fancy

Are you a Bulls, Sharks or Cheetahs fan? Or do you prefer the Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs or Bafana Bafana? Which ever team you support in whichever sport – make sure you take out all your paraphernalia this Friday for Casual Day.

In the 2010 Fifa World Cup spirit, this year’s Casual Day theme is dressing as a fan of your favourite sports team. However, the day is more than just an excuse for dressing up. The R10 that you pay for your Casual Day sticker goes towards raising funds for and awareness of people with disabilities. Each year the money raised goes to six national and about 400 local beneficiaries around the country.

Jolandi Snyders, the marketing and events officer for Rhodes University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies, says: "Casual Day is an opportunity for people, in a very fun and easy way, to make a difference in people’s lives". She suggests that there should be more than one Casual Day a year. "It’s such a simple way of getting people to get involved!"

Ronel Bowles, advertising manager at Grocott’s Mail, sells Casual Day stickers to the staff each year. Even though she admits that the dress code at the office is fairly informal, staff at the newspaper still participate by dressing according to the themes. "For a fairly small price you can contribute towards a good cause," she explains. She also agrees with Snyders that there should be more Casual Days to raise awareness. "It makes people aware of those kinds of organisations," she says.

By yesterday afternoon, the project had already raised over R2 million. However, this is nowhere near the R15.6 million that was raised last year. So instead of dressing up for working today, dress down, slap on a Casual Day sticker and support your favourite football, rugby or soccer team while supporting people with disabilities.