Havergal Students Make an Impact on the Diabetes Community through Dear Diabetes
Writers: Cathy Li, Angela Dong, and Sofia Dunaevsky
Editor: Maryam Khan
Dear Diabetes is a youth led initiative dedicated to raising awareness and supporting the diabetes community. It was formed by Angela, Cathy, and Sofia for HOSA’s Community Awareness event. Their mission is to educate, advocate, and make a lasting impact on diabetes patients through awareness, prevention, and empowerment. They aim to spread knowledge about diabetes, encourage healthy lifestyles, and provide meaningful support to those affected. Through events, fundraisers, podcasts, and informational posts, they hope that together, we can create a more informed, compassionate, and connected community!
As of right now, Dear Diabetes has reached over 70,000 views across social media and shared more than 100 informative posts focused on breaking stigma and educating people about diabetes. They have written over 15 Medium articles covering different diabetes related topics and created more than 20 Spotify podcast episodes, where they interview doctors with first hand experience working with diabetic patients as well as individuals who are living with diabetes themselves.
Outside of social media, Dear Diabetes has distributed over 200 flyers in libraries, schools, and door to door in local neighborhoods to reach people in the community directly. They have also hosted over five events, including a bake sale, two bracelet fundraisers, a walkathon with the Wellbeing Council, trivia initiatives, and an information session presentation. Through these fundraisers, they have donated over $500 to Diabetes Canada.
They also started a student interview series where they asked students and members of the public about their knowledge of diabetes, helping highlight common misconceptions and gaps in awareness. Alongside this, they created healthy recipe video tutorials that people can easily follow at home. At school, Dear Diabetes presented a diabetes awareness assembly to over 800 students and staff, focusing on education, prevention, and thriving.
In the near future, they plan on hosting a card-writing campaign in partnership with the Diabetes Hope Foundation. They are planning to get others to help in the making of writing personalized messages to youth who have been recently diagnosed with diabetes to make them feel supported as they are overcoming this overwhelming news. To take part in this campaign, watch out for an informative post on their Instagram page where details on the date and time will be posted. Another way to support is to donate to their GoFundMe, which is found on their website, Instagram, or Linktree, where all funds go towards Diabetes Canada for diabetes treatment and research.
Check out their Instagram and GoFundMe page!