WORLD DIABETES DAY CELEBRATION – Rwanda (MEDSAR)

Name of the activity: WORLD DIABETES DAY CELEBRATION

Country/NMO: Rwanda (MEDSAR)

Program: Healthy Lifestyles & Non-Communicable Diseases

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Campaign

General description:

we first had a training about non-communicable diseases in general but specifically about diabetes as the capacity building to the medical students took place on 12/11/2017, the training was both theoretical and practical where 125 medical students attended and got skills on the content. we also had the online campaign started from 13/11/2017 with the purpose of providing the mass teaching to a large group of people via social media such as facebook where we used twibborn by chaning the profile pictures containing different messages, whatsap sessions to tell people mostly the youth about diabetes, twitter as well as the challenge pictures. on 15/11/2017 we had the first activity where we did a mass teaching at the University of Rwanda/Remera Campus and a screening of blood glucose then predict about diabetes where more than 200 people screened, blood pressure as it is a crucial vital sign for diabetes patients and body mass index to deal with obesity and after screening we gave different advice according to everyone’s health status as far as the results of everyone was concerned, students and staff of the university of Rwanda attended the event. on 10/12/2017 we had the main event took place in the southern province of Rwanda where it started by a walk from the university heading to the main city in southern province, the walk had the aim of raising the awareness about diabetes and also fighting stigma to the diabetes patients in the society, after a walk we heard different messages from the government officials and other NGOs working on diabetes in Rwanda. we also did the free public screening so as to promote proper screening and then early diagnosis which leads to the better treatment where about 450 people got screened to diabetes, we gave advice to them according to everyones data, we also provided the message to one of the television in Rwanda called Goodrich TV, and Radio Rwanda as well as via a newspaper called WWW. IGIHE,COM

Focus area:

Prevention of NCDs and Health Promotion

Problem statement:

The World Health Organisation’s 2014 global status report showed that NCDs were the leading cause of deaths globally, accounting for 38 million (68%) of the world’s 56 million deaths in 2012.Almost three quarters of all NCD deaths (28 million occur in low- and middle-income countries.

In Rwanda, according to the Ministry of Health’s 2015 report, over the period of January–December 2013, NCDs accounted for at least 51.86% of all District Hospital outpatients’ consultation and 22.3% of District Hospital admission cases. According to the Diabetes Atlas the prevalence of diabetes in Rwanda is about 3.16% of the population with 1,918 diabetes related deaths per year.
Last year, the University Teaching hospital of Kigali received 4,860 hospitalized internal medicine patients with NCDs and of those patients, 3% had hypertension, 3.6% had diabetes. Heart attack was at 5% while cancer was at 6.5%.
A 2013 survey done by The Ministry of Health estimated that 175,575 people (between the ages of 15-64) are living with diabetes that corresponds to the prevalence of 3% among the population. “The main challenge is that almost half of them are not diagnosed, meaning that they are not aware that they have diabetes.” which shows that our society lack knowledge about diabetes and also the early diagnosis of a disease is an exacerbating factors to the further complications.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

the Medical students are the future doctors so they need knowledge and skills to fight NCDs and promoting healthy lifestyles in our society. our college of medicine and health sciences as a tool for leading the change in healthcare system as it is a training center for the future health care providers, then it is of great help to tackle the burden of NCDS in our society. Vulnerable people in the society especially the ones live in the villages as they do not have sufficient access to health care and health education. Governments either local and national we need to advocate for different NCDs issues to the policy makers as it is now a big burden to our society, we need to act and be part of the solution. Different non-governmental organizations so as to join hands together to beat Diabetes.

Objectives and indicators of success:

1.Encourage Governments, non-governmental organizations and private businesses to increase awareness of the disease, particularly among the general population and the media in Rwanda where atleast 2 most famous newspaper and 1 television and a radio will talk and write about diabetes during the campaign on 10/12/217 for Rwandan people.

Success criteria for this was to have news on a country radio called radio rwanda, and on a famous newspaper as well as to have a show on a TV called goodrich TV.
2. Raise awareness of diabetes to 1000 people, its prevention and complications and the care that people with the condition need to be done at the end of december 2017 in Rwanda.
Success criteria for this was that, in the whole campaign we got more than 1000 people who attended and listened to the knowledge we were providing

3. Focus on promoting the importance of screening to ensure early diagnosis of type 2diabetes and treatment to reduce the risk of serious complications at the end of december 2017 where we 600 people have been screened in Rwanda.

Success criteria was that more than 600 people have been screened for diabetes and got advice of either to go to the hospital or to change the life style.

Methodology:

social media campaign on facebook/whatsap/twiter/Radio/Television/Challenge pictures so as to provide the message. a training to the medical students so that they may be equipped with knowledge and skills. free NCDs screening such as blood glucose to check for diabetes and blood pressure to check for hypertension and other peripheral vascular diseases. education to raise the awareness to the society.

Plans for evaluation:

survey, testimonies got from the people right away after the event, screening lists, attendance lists for the people who came in a training, newspaper articles, pictures of the event