Gakoni (Gatsibo): From 21st to 26th August, 2022, The Rwanda Diabetes Association (RDA) organized a youth diabetes camp to train 60 young people living with type 1 diabetes aged 14 to 30 from the seven districts of the Eastern Province.
The major objective of the camp was to promote diabetes self-management and health education for self-care and positive life-style among youth living with type 1 diabetes mellitus. For the majority of participants, this was the first time they were away from their family members and primary caregivers for an extended period, giving them the opportunity to experience some independent self-care and to build their confidence in diabetes self-management.
They just spent a week at Gakoni training center located in Kiramuruzi sector of Gatsibo district, a center built by the Founder of RDA, the late François Gishoma.
Florence Uwase, 26 years old, is a young teacher living with type 1 diabetes since 2014. She was diagnosed diabetes positive when she was in senior five of secondary school.
Florence Uwase, 26 years old.
“I come from Rwamagana Hospital where I am being followed for diabetes treatment. I came to know that I had diabetes in 2014. I felt bad, seriously ill and very weak while I was in boarding school. The tests confirmed that I had type 1 diabetes mellitus. I started treatment. It helped me to continue my studies and get good results, though I did not go far. Actually, I am a teacher in primary school and I enjoy my profession,”she confides, to add:
“This training camp proved to me that I am not the only person to suffer from my discomfort. Diabetes is for us a shared problem… I now know other young people living with diabetes who got married and have healthy children. They comforted me about my future. In my turn, I intend to get married and continue to control and manage my diabetes, while exercising my profession without hindrance. I know a friend from my school who is in this camp. By the time we will meet other students with diabetes, we shall advise them to join our association for training and treatment.“
David Karasira, 25 years old, also comes from Kiziguro Health Center in Gatsibo district.
“I came to know that I have diabetes in April 2010, twelve years ago. As a symptom, I felt excessive thirst. I was in pain in all my joints. The medical tests revealed that I had type 1 diabetes. Yet, I was of moderate weight. In 2013, I joined RDA. We did not yet know how to inject insulin as a typical medication for type 1 mellitus. When RDA trained us about the use of insulin, our health recovered. We went back to school. We worked well with good results. Life resumed and fear disappeared. We were no longer discriminated against by our comrades who claimed that a person living with pisses on himself all the time; which is also false”, says Karasira, who works as an agent for Startime, and who sells solar panels and televisions.
David Karasira, 25 years old
Karasira also added that he is in good health and her kidneys are functioning well as proved by recent medical tests. At his workplace, no one can know that he is living with diabetes because he knows how to manage his life and take insulin well. He knows what time he has to eat something. He plans to get married at 30 years old.
“I know other young people living with diabetes like me and we thank RDA very much for all it has done and continues to do for us. We have seniors who got married and have healthy children. I have to manage my diabetes and adapt it to my future life which must be promising,” said Karasira.
For the Director of RDA, Etienne Uwingabire, the objective of the current training is to build the capacity of these young people living with diabetes and turn them into experts in their own diabetes management. They must learn how to treat diabetes and how to live with it after they have already accepted it.
“RDA monitors these young diabetics in their families, at school and at the workplace in order to know their living and health conditions. This contributes to better building their future. It was in 2012 that RDA – founded by the late François Gishoma- started to work with different partners including Rwanda Biomedical Center to conduct training camps for youth living with diabetes. We are also working closely with district hospitals to organize quarterly clinic visits across the country……..The result is that some children and young people have returned to school and other young people restarted their own businesses or work for other people. Parents understood that they have to continue to support their children while some of them had given up in discouragement”.
Etienne Uwingabire, Director of RDA
“The provided training focuses on diabetes definition, its causes, how to manage and protect yourself, appropriate diet for diabetics, what sports to practice, diabetes complications and how to prevent them… We want young people living with diabetes to become experts in diabetes self-management”, informed the Director of RDA.
We intend to organize this camp in all provinces and the City of Kigali. This cohort is the first composed by 60 young people living with diabetes from the Eastern Province. With the financial support of the Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC), we will extend the training to other Provinces, or we will bring the beneficiaries together in this Gakoni Center”. In the whole country, it has been identified more than 2,300 diabetic children and young people and around 1500 are followed by RDA, revealed the Director of RDA, Uwingabire. (End)