Introduction to Diabetes Education 101

Attendees of the AfDA education event on 26th Jan 2023

On the 28th of January, 2023, a cohort of 11 members met for a diabetes education event hosted by Africa Diabetes Alliance at Satellite Hotel on Kisaasi-Kyanja road from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. The event comprised two separate sessions, the first one facilitated by Mr. Michael Tirwomwe, a registered dentist and lecturer of Biochemistry at Kabale University, who is also a person living with type 1 diabetes for over 35 years, while the second session was facilitated by Mr. Rodney Sewanyana, an accountant by profession who is pursuing ACCA certification and has lived with T1D since November, 2017.

Beginning of session one facilitated by Mr. Michael Tirwomwe

The first session was very interactive, engaging and informative and delved into;

How diabetes comes about
Prevention of diabetes mellitus
The differences between type 1 diabetes, prediabetes, type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes
Causes and risk factors
Signs and symptoms of diabetes mellitus
Diagnosis and management
Complications of diabetes mellitus

Session two facilitated by Mr. Rodney Sewanyana, YLD, Uganda

The second session started with an icebreaker hypo-hyper exercise that he learned in a session facilitated by the League of DiAthletes (LoD) while attending the 2022 Young Leaders in Diabetes (YLD) training at the annual World Diabetes Congress hosted by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) in Lisbon, Portugal. He then covered a session on "How to navigate a new diabetes diagnosis", where he shared his own experience and asked others to share theirs too. Topics that were covered included;

Acceptance vs denial
Finding the right support for you
Recognizing and addressing diabetes myths an misconceptions
Learning and making necessary lifestyle changes
Achieving personal and professional goals while managing diabetes

Participants were glad to have attended and left with new information, ideas, friends and renewed resolve. We appreciate everyone that made it for this event and we are working on making them more regular and accessible too. We thank our facilitators greatly for giving of themselves to disarm diabetes daily.

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