The project seeks to raise awareness at secondary school level on how to prevent diabetes.
Expected impact
Health promotion in 865 public upper primary, secondary and higher secondary schools
260,000 students reached through one-day awareness camps and yoga classes
200,000 parents and 5,000 teachers reached with prevention messages through awareness classes and medical camps
1,400 teachers trained on diabetes symptoms, risk factors etc.
100 volunteers trained on diabetes detection, management and prevention
Results to date
Health promotion has been conducted in 647 public schools
167,177 children/youth have participated in awareness classes and medical camps and their anthropometric measurements have been recorded
199,604 parents and 7,660 teachers have attended awareness classes and medical camps and the majority had their blood sugar and cholesterol levels assessed
785 teachers have attended diabetes training
83 volunteers have been trained in diabetes prevention, detection and management
A total of 374,524 people have been reached through awareness and screening camps
Project details
In India, more than 40 million people have diabetes - a number which is expected to reach almost 70 million by the year 2025.
The prevalence of diabetes in India, especially among urban residents, is largely attributed to a change of lifestyle towards unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity.
Alarmingly, recent studies have found that even children are now getting type II diabetes in India. Therefore, it is vital that prevention efforts targeting children and their parents are initiated in order to decrease unhealthy lifestyle which may lead to diabetes.
Objective
The project seeks to raise awareness at secondary school level on how to prevent diabetes.
Approach
The project will be implemented in the southern Indian state of Kerala where the prevalence of diabetes is 14.6%.
The project has two main components.
The first component focuses on inducing changes at the individual level by informing children, parents and teachers of diabetes and encouraging them to change risky behaviour. Changing the environment at school level aims for creating awareness on the importance of healthy menus in school canteens and awareness on healthy food vs junk food and also highlighting the importance of regular physical education classes and yoga in school curriculum.
The second component focuses on changing the environment at home to a healthier one. At home level the project aims at creating awareness on healthy cooking, promoting more physical activity and also encouraging families to have vegetable gardens at home.
The strategy is to target 260,000 students in classes V to XII (age group 10 to 17) in 865 public upper primary, secondary and higher secondary schools in the districts of Alappuzha and Pathanamthitta and address the communities as a whole through the students.
Besides the students about 200,000 parents and 5,000 teachers will also be reached through awareness classes and medical camps with prevention messages.
About 100 volunteers will be trained to enable them to enhance awareness on diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular diseases among the students. They will also acquire the necessary skills for detection, management and prevention of diabetes. The volunteers will include doctors, nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists, health educators and yoga trainers.
The volunteers will be divided into groups and each group will attend a given school for not less than six hours within one or two days. During this period the students will participate in classes on diabetes and other lifestyle diseases, healthy living and also attend physical exercise and yoga training sessions. Anthropometric measurements of students will be recorded and those with high risk of diabetes will be identified.
Separate one-day awareness camps will be organised for parents and teachers. It is expected that about 200,000 parents and 5,000 teachers will participate in such classes. During such camps their blood pressure and blood sugar level will be determined. Those who are identified as having diabetes or pre-diabetes will be offered a detailed physical examination and counselling on lifestyle modification and they will be referred for appropriate treatment.
Review sessions will be conducted at the end of every six months.
The project envisages the setting up of a mechanism to continue the programme in all the school centres. During the project period selected teachers from the centres will be given the necessary training so that they can be utilised as resource persons to continue the programme in future.
At the end of the 5-year project implementation, it is the intention of the project to replicate the programme to the remaining secondary schools in Kerala.
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