As you may have heard, November is International Diabetes Awareness Month, and November the 14th is World Diabetes Day. While we encourage everyone to spend all year working to make life for people with diabetes better and more manageable, it’s nice to have a day when we can all get together as a community and rally behind a common cause and theme.
This year, we at Timesulin wanted to take a bigger role in the events going on around World Diabetes Day. So, we’re encouraging our readers and customers to Go Blue for World Diabetes Day! For the entire month of November, we’re going to be giving back to the diabetes community with your help. For every customer who uses one of our special coupons, we’ll be donating £1 to Diabetes UK. We’ll also be donating £1 for every Timesulin pen cap sold to the Life For A Child programme from the International Diabetes Federation. Both of these charities have done great work, and are a tremendous source of hope and strength in the diabetes community, and we’re very honored to be working with both of them.
About World Diabetes Day
World Diabetes Day was created in 1991 through a collaboration between the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization. The goal of World Diabetes Day is to bring the international diabetes community together and engage them in raising awareness of diabetes across the globe. To that end, world diabetes day is recognized by every member of the International Diabetes Federation (over 200 organizations) in 160 countries. It’s also recognized by every member state of the United Nations, and by many corporations, healthcare providers, and non-governmental organizations. All told, millions of people across the world join together as a single community.
Since its inception in 1991, World Diabetes Day has had an associated theme, with themes ranging from the purely medical (“Diabetes and Foot Care”) to more political and social topics (“Diabetes and Human Rights”). The theme for this year is Diabetes Education and Prevention, a topic we think we can all get behind. The great thing about these themes is that while they unite the global diabetes community, they also are quite open to interpretation. They give individuals, organizations, and whole countries a lot of leeway to try to interpret the theme as best they can and to really get into the heart of what it means to them.
To us, the theme of Diabetes Education and Prevention is incredibly personal and important. While the majority of Timesulin users have Type 1 Diabetes, which is currently not preventable, we are noticing a growing number of those with Type 2 Diabetes using our product. I think this is where Education and Prevention really needs to be stepped up. Type 2 Diabetes is largely preventable, and while it has a genetic component, we need to get out there and really spread the word about how living a healthier life can have a huge impact on reducing the number of Type 2 Diabetes cases. That’s one of the reasons we’re donating money to Diabetes UK – they have some great prevention and education programs already working, and some great ideas still to come.
We’re also very proud to be donating to the Life For A Child campaign from the International Diabetes Federation. If you haven’t heard about the Life For A Child program, we strongly encourage you to look into it. The program provides funding to established diabetes treatment centers in developing nations. This is critical, because so many children are still struggling to get access to basic diabetes supplies like insulin, syringes and needles, and testing equipment. In fact, lack of access to insulin is still the number one cause of death among children with diabetes in developing nations, and the average life expectancy of many children in Africa after a diabetes diagnosis is less than one year. Life For A Child has already taken great steps in helping children with diabetes around the world, and this November we can help them take even greater ones.
So as World Diabetes Day comes and goes this year, let’s take the message of unity in the diabetes community to heart, and let’s all come together to make the world a little bit better for people with diabetes!