Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 16, 2017 News
– three Guyanese elected to inaugural Regional Youth Leaders Board
Three Guyanese have been elected to sit on the inaugural board of the Regional Youth Leaders in Diabetes. The Board was formed last month during the International Diabetes Federation’s North America and Caribbean [NAC] region
Diabetic Associations meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The elected Guyanese are Ms. Keziah Nestor as Vice President; Ms Mallissa Kandhai, Secretary, and First Committee Member on Education, Mr. Martin King. The three are all members of the youth arm of the Guyana Diabetic Association – the Youth Leaders in Diabetes.
Other members of the Board are its President Jermaine James of St. Kitts; Treasurer Ashwael Warner of Barbados; Project Manager Clyde Lewis of Belize and Second Committee Member with responsibility for fundraising, Ms. Danielle Harney of Bermuda.
Other local members who attended the recent meeting were President of the Diabetic Association, Mrs. Glynis Alonzo-Beaton, and Ms. Shawna Mars-Blaize.
The group left Guyana on March 23 last, for the four-day Mexico meeting, which had as its main focus the importance of youth work in helping to battle the scourge of Type One diabetes.
Although there were at least 10 territories represented at the NAC meeting, Guyana’s fledgling Youth Leaders in Diabetes was viewed as the most vibrant in helping to raise awareness about Type One diabetes. The youth arm was established in January of last year.
In fact, it was in recognition of the important role that the youth arm has been playing here in Guyana, that the move for a regional Diabetic Board was encouraged, so that other countries could see similar benefit. The move was initiated by Mrs. Alonzo-Beaton.
Travelling to the Mexico meeting came at no small cost. But according to Alonzo-Beaton, the Guyana Diabetic Association was able to gain immense support from the Pan American Health Organisation [PAHO] to fund two [Kandhai and King] of the three youth leaders’ travel to Mexico.
“Sometimes when you get support from international organisations you take it lightly, but I can say I appreciate PAHO’s assistance,” said Alonzo-Beaton, as she pointed out that because of the stringent requirement of PAHO, the support cannot be taken lightly.
“Their requirement is that the persons who were funded…they have to complete a project and implement what they have learned,” said Alonzo-Beaton,” as she emphasised that “the PAHO support was important because we do not get subventions…we have to depend on fundraising and membership fees to do whatever we need to do, and a trip like this required hundreds of thousands of dollars, but when I asked PAHO for support, they were ready and willing, and this is not the first time PAHO has assisted us.”
According to Nestor, who also holds the position of President of the Youth Leaders in Diabetes, the trip to Mexico was a success, since “we learnt how to be responsible leaders. We had a two-day meeting with the members of the North American Caribbean region that was conducted by the Chair Elect, Her Excellency Ms. Sharon Fraser, and she taught us as young leaders how to always be responsible.”
Nestor explained that the intent of the meeting was to ensure that each territory represented would be able to initiate a Youth Leaders in Diabetes, similar to what Guyana already has in place. At the meeting, the participants were able to meet and interact with some Type One diabetics, many of whom shared their experiences and ideas about what can be done to help tackle the health challenge which has been noticeably increasing.
Given the success of the meeting, Nestor too was eager to share her appreciation for the PAHO support.
“PAHO did a great job of funding two of our members to learn, so that they can come back and share their knowledge.”
But the participants of the meeting are slated to have their knowledge further augmented when they attend a Type One Diabetes training camp in Canada in the near future.
The training camp, according to Nestor, was initiated by IDF member, Ms. Debbie Jones.
“We will be a part of an actual camp to learn all there is to know about dealing with Types Ones, because it is important that we understand what we are doing before we are able to do even more,” Nestor related.
Once the training in Canada is completed, the participants will then convene similar camps throughout the NAC region.
“We will be ready to start some serious awareness. We thought that it was only in Guyana that there evidence of ignorance about Type One diabetes, but at the meeting we learnt that this is not unique to Guyana, and we all have to do serious awareness work,” Nestor asserted.
Type One Diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes [since it occurs in younger individuals] or insulin diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin. The lack of insulin results in high blood sugar levels. This condition has reportedly been responsible for the onset of depression in a number of Type One diabetic patients.
The local youth group, even ahead of the meeting, has been working to raise awareness about this.
According to Kandhai, she decided to be a part of the group so that she could learn more about diabetes. Both Kandhai and Nestor have relatives who suffer from diabetes, thus they wanted to learn more so that they could be more supportive.
“I am hoping as a group we will be able to push awareness of Type One diabetes so that we can help persons living with it to better cope and have self-empowerment as we strive to reduce this in the region,” said Kandhai, who also holds the position of Secretary of the youth arm.
King on the other hand is a Type One diabetic and serves as Treasurer of the group.
“At the meeting we learnt a lot about moulding ourselves to be young leaders for our country, to help and motivate other young people to be like us,” said King, as he stressed how crucial it is to raise awareness, in the quest to help Type One diabetics be in a position to better control the chronic disease.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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