Global Diabetes Walk across the globe   Global Diabetes Walk in Afghanistan, 14 November 2009     Starting from Helsinki in Finland as the northernmost Walk to Geelong in Australia as the southernmost, more than 155,000 people in 61 countries from East to West stepped out and walked across the globe to show solidarity to the cause and create awareness about diabetes on World Diabetes Day on Saturday 14 November. Once all Walks have been updated, we can announce the final number of participants, but already now we can see that an amazing number of people stepped of for diabetes in World Diabetes Day. Thank you! As Walks are updated, we anticipate the actual number of walkers to increase day by day.   Walk features As a warm up to this year’s Global Diabetes Walk, feature stories from around the world were published at the globaldiabeteswalk website. We were taken to South Africa, Uganda, Mexico, the US, Canada and India where some planned their first Global Diabetes Walk while others had some years’ experience: Mazatlan, Mexico: A nutritionist at the Mazatlán College of Nutrition coordinated her town’s first Global Diabetes Walk and managed to get the support from the local diabetes association and the Associations of Surgeons and General Practitioners who followed up with a diabetes congress the week after the Walk. Arua, Uganda: For the third consecutive year, Arua celebrated the Global Diabetes Walk. School bands paraded through the streets to attract everyone’s attention and lead them to the local health centre where diabetes awareness activities took place. London Ontario, Canada: As per tradition Sir Frederick Banting, the father of insulin, was celebrated in his hometown on his own birthday 14 November. The town’s secondary school which bears his name organised the Global Diabetes Walk for the fourth time in collaboration with the Canadian Diabetes Association and Banting House National Historic Site. Petaluma, California US: Two family nurse practitioners organised their community’s first Global Diabetes Walk and inspired several local businesses and organisation to participate. They even advertised their Walk at YouTube. Cape Town, South Africa: The Western branch of Diabetes South Africa organised a Run or Walk event at one of the most beautiful locations in the Western Cape. The Walk also used the hype around the hype around the upcoming World Cup 2010 in South Africa to promote healthy lifestyles. Pathanamthitta, Kerala, India: As part of the KNOw Diabetes campaign, more than 2,000 students planned to join the Global Diabetes Walk in Pathanamthitta, in the Indian state of Kerala. The Walk is but one event in a large campaign named “To the community through students” which conducts diabetes awareness classes and medical camps for schools.   See photos from the worldwide Walks as they are being uploaded. For the third year in a row, World Diabetes Day was celebrated as an official UN observed day. Following the campaign by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), in December 2006 the UN passed the resolution marking 14th November as the UN observed World Diabetes Day and recognising that diabetes poses serious challenges to world health and urging member states to take sustainable actions to curb the epidemic.

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