gwen's blog

National Diabetes Program launched in Ramallah

From left: Mr Ahmad Abo Halaweh, Augusta Victoria Hospital; Dr Umaiyeh Khammash, Juzoor (and formerly UNRWA); Dr Anders Dejgaard, WDF; Dr Abdul Fatah, Palestine MoH; and Mrs Lisa Henry, DanChurchAid.

This week, efforts to improve diabetes care for Palestinians took a major step forward with the launch of a project targeting the northern region of the West Bank, where diabetes services currently are scarce.

In Tanzania, a type 1 advocate who knows what’s at stake

Twelve years ago, Anita Bulinda was a child learning to live with type 1 diabetes. Today, she’s a co-founder of the Tanzanian Diabetes Youth Alliance.

SEE THE FILM (3 minutes)

“When I finish school, I would love to be a lawyer,” young Anita Bulindi says confidently to the camera. ”Because I like to defend the people who have rights. That's what I like.”

In Nigeria, diabetes stakeholders resolve to work harder

Dr Evelyn Ngige (left) greets Anders Dejgaard at the podium of ‘Diabetes and NCDs in Nigeria’, a stakeholder meeting in Abuja.

“If Nigeria is to meet its global commitments, there’s a lot of hard work to be done,” Dr Anders Dejgaard, Managing Director of the World Diabetes Foundation, said at the start of Diabetes and NCDs in Nigeria on 24 August.

His audience clearly agreed. Over the next two days, WDF partners energetically exchanged experiences gained from their work combatting diabetes across Nigeria, and urged government to increase support for diabetes and other NCD responses.

Nigerian Stakeholders Seek Solutions to Diabetes Challenge

ABUJA, NIGERIA - Nigerian government, civil society and healthcare experts are coming together this week to address a growing threat to the country’s economy and the health and well-being of its citizens: diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

In Turkey, peer education leads to lower weight and blood sugar

Participants in a 2012 peer training session in Erzurum, Turkey.

In 2011, the Turkish Diabetes Association proposed an ambitious response to Turkey’s fast-rising diabetes rates. They would create a network of peer educators who would then hold meetings for people with diabetes, helping them to understand the disease and provide better care for themselves.

New film explores diabetes burden, and solutions

Defeating Diabetes - One Day. WDF image film.

Tanzanian children are learning how to avoid diabetes through a host of WDF-supported prevention programmes.

SEE THE FILM (9 mins)

Why do 75% of people with diabetes live in developing countries? And what can be done to reduce this burden – not just today, but for generations to come?

WDF supports 26 new projects in first half of 2017

Health care provider working in a WDF-funded diistrict level diabetes programme in Itzapalapa district, Mexico City

Below is a list of the new partnership projects that received WDF funding in the first six months of 2017. (Several advocacy projects also received funding in the first half of the year; these are not listed.)

Links to project descriptions will be added as they become available.

New projects signed in first half of 2017

Yemen: caring for diabetes in times of war

Abdullah Almatary Aden Diabetes Center HCP training

SEE A SHORT SLIDESHOW (1 min.)

In March of 2015, long-simmering tensions between Yemen’s traditional North and socialist South exploded into civil war. Houthi forces from the north invaded Aden, forcing tens of thousands to flee. One of them was Dr Abdullah Almatary, a WDF project partner since 2010 and the director of the Aden Diabetes Center.

In Mali, youth with diabetes gain skills and support

SEE A FILM - (English, 6 mins.)

VOIR UN FILM - (Français, 6 mins)

Makani learned what diabetes is. Oumar learned how to store insulin. And Esther learned that she’s not alone.

Dead Sea Declaration calls for urgent action on diabetes in refugees

SEE A SHORT FILM (4 mins.)

For refugees and those who host them, securing safety, food, shelter and acute medical care comes first. Yet as millions of displaced people move into camps or cramped urban settings, often with limited access to healthy food and exercise, increasing numbers of them are facing a new threat – diabetes.