Diabetes awareness campaign a success

By Ivamere Nataro 03 March 2018, 12:00AM

The “Raising Awareness for Diabetes” campaign held yesterday was a success. 

Despite the soggy weather in the wee hours of the morning, many turned out in numbers to help raise awareness on diabetes and to promote healthy living. 

The campaign included a one hour walk from the Samoa Tourism Authority fale to the Seafood Gourmet Bar & Grill, followed by a 20 minutes exercise and healthy refreshments. 

It is the first event of its kind to be held in Samoa and was organized by the One Touch Ministry and Nobesity Samoa. 

One Touch Ministry Director, Pastor Lenny Solomona said they never expected the turnout, but it was great to know that people wanted to fight diabetes and also care for their health. 

“We had people from different areas, some people from church backgrounds and some people from our boot camp, some people from the general community, and other representatives from the organisations we had invited, so it was a success for me.” 

“We ran two programs, so we had the One Touch and the Nobesity programme for the children, so that is why you can see many children here, but the message is the same and that is about leadership in the family and we’re teaching that to the children now.”  

After yesterday’s success, Pastor Lenny said this would be an annual event and plans are to have it at the start of every year to help people keep fit after the festive season and also to have a refreshing message before they start the new year. 

“We don’t know whether we will have another program in November, but this will surely be an annual event and we’re looking at around the same time next year.”

He explained: “One Touch cannot fight diabetes alone, we need to work together to help fight diabetes and we need to start working on a collective preventative idea, so that we don’t only depend on this event, the event encourages people but most important is the process.” 

“It’s not getting people to this event that will help bring diabetes down, it is what we do after this that matters,  so the message from here is let’s work together because we’re better together.” 

The global diabetes walk was initiated in 2004 by the World Diabetes Foundation and is held on November 14 every year.  

By Ivamere Nataro 03 March 2018, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

Upgrade to Premium

Subscribe to
Samoa Observer Online

Enjoy unlimited access to all our articles on any device + free trial to e-Edition. You can cancel anytime.

>