Show your support this National Diabetes Month!

It’s National Diabetes Month – the perfect time to get involved in spreading diabetes awareness… Here are some great ways to get involved:

• Join Sweet Life’s Facebook page, Diabetic South Africans, and meet other people living with diabetes: www.facebook.com/DiabeticSouthAfricans
• Get informed by reading our community blog, commenting and asking your own questions: www.sweetlife.org.za/community
• Check out Kids Powered by Insulin for parents of diabetic children: www.facebook.com/groups/Kidspoweredbyinsulin/
• Join a local support group.
• Speak about diabetes – and what it’s like to live with it every day – to your friends and family. Diabetes education can start at home.
• Get involved with Denim for Diabetes, run by Diabetes SA. During November, businesses can hold a Denim Day to help create awareness of diabetes. It’s as simple as hosting a casual day where staff pay R10 and wear denims in support of diabetes awareness.

5 steps to starting your own support group:

If you don’t have a support group in your area and you want to start one, here’s what you need to do!

1. Spread the word: tell everyone you know with diabetes in your area, post on our Facebook page and blog, and put up notices in the community and even in the local newspaper.

2. Find a suitable space that you can hold the meetings (for free).

3. Find a diabetes educator or a clinic sister who can be at each meeting to answer questions.

4. Get some diabetic-friendly snacks and free Sweet Life magazines (let us know and we’ll send them!)

5. Meet once a month to support each another.

And finally, educate others too! Sometimes getting involved is as easy as being honest about diabetes.