Dr Ashley Ng

On November 14th, World Diabetes Day (WDD) 2013 saw a huge and successful celebration for everyone around the world. I relished in the flood of blue across all my social media feeds. The variety of events held worldwide to help celebrate and raise awareness for diabetes was nothing short of impressive and inspirational. In Melbourne, celebrations started the night before with many members of the Oz Diabetes Online Community (OzDOC) being featured in some impressive events. Here’s what some of us got up to:

Kim was awarded with the Type 1 Diabetes Network Seed Award for her contributions to the Type 1 Community. That aside, she has also been a key player in the running of OzDOC, which reaches out to the entire diabetes online community (the term impressive doesn’t even cut it). Kim also celebrated her birthday the day after receiving the award, so double congrats and celebrations are in order! Check out her blog here.

Renza and Michael from Diabetes Australia made a television appearance to bust common diabetes misconceptions. I found this interview refreshing and comforting, especially when Renza spoke of the need to remove stigma from diabetes. Playing the blame game won’t help anyone. Instead, we should be combining our efforts to raise awareness of the different types of diabetes out there. I also appreciated her emphasis that both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are serious in their own way. Thanks Renza! And thanks to Michael who was spot on about the differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Check out their interview here.

A few other members of the OzDOC were featured in this video promoting Diabetes Australia’s Young Leaders in Diabetes program (yours truly included). Leaders spoke about why they wanted to be part of this program and what they would like to focus on in their contribution towards the diabetes community. Read more about the Young Leaders in Diabetes program here. The video was premiered at Diabetes Australia – Victoria’s WDD celebration event, where the 2014 Diabetes Australia Research Trust (DART) awards were also announced. After a lot of fancy canapes and catching up with friends I don’t often get to see, I tagged along to see the lighting up of Melbourne’s iconic GPO  for WDD.

I’m incredibly proud of the achievements that the OzDOC have made in spreading the word of how social media can play a positive role in diabetes management. Here’s to many more TweetChats and achievements in the years to come! Although I wasn’t able to participate much in the #WDDchat13, a 24-hour tweetchat moderated by groups around the world, check out some photos of how other countries celebrated WDD here!