November is Diabetes Awareness Month. Maybe you’ve participated in spreading awareness in the past and are looking for new ideas. Maybe it’s your first year with T1D and you’re not sure where to start. Whatever your situation, here are some great ideas and resources for you to use online and in your community!
Awareness Profile Pictures
You can do small things like changing your profile picture. There are several diabetes awareness campaigns you can use.
The one I use on my “Carb Counting Mama” Facebook profile picture is from the T1D Mod Squad. You can get their awareness ribbon here (or they have a couple of newer options here) and add your own picture. (If it doesn’t work from your phone, you might have to try from a desktop computer).
Or, you can use one of the options from JDRF. You can create your “T1D footprint” here. You have to scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says “Create Your T1D Footprint”. It looks like this:
Or you can simply click on your Facebook profile picture and select “add frame”. Type in “T1D”, “JDRF”, or “Diabetes Awareness” to get several different type 1 diabetes awareness frames.
** Facebook frames are not available this year (2022). I’m hoping they’re back next year! Here’s the official reasoning from FB:
“The creation of new profile frames is unavailable. We are now limiting the ability to create profile frames to organizations that are included in one of our information centers. To start, these include the COVID Information Center and the Voter Information Center, and we will soon add Climate Science Center, where we’ve made substantial investments to connect people to helpful and reliable information and resources. We believe this approach will help people continue to express their support around important issues like reliable health information, voting, and climate change.”
Sharing online
Ok, changing your profile picture is great, but you’re seeing all of these type 1 awareness posts popping up. You want to write something, but an original post every day for the month of November seems a bit daunting.
Greater Than has you covered! They’ve created this awesome T1D Awareness Challenge, giving you topic ideas for each day of the month.
If you don’t want to write your own posts, you can share others.
There are several pages that share “A Fact A Day” posts in November. Some of my favorites are T1D Mod Squad Open, D-Mom: The sweet life with a diabetic child, T1D Superhero, and of course my Carb Counting Mama page.
Related: T1D Facebook Pages to Follow this Diabetes Awareness Month
But what if you don’t want to share on your personal profile?
Maybe you don’t want to bring attention to your T1D online. Maybe your child doesn’t want you talking about it and embarrassing them. But you still want to spread awareness. That’s ok!
When you see a great post that you think would be informative for others, you can share it in a T1D facebook group. That way, you share it in a closed group full of other people who likely will want to re-share the post but it doesn’t go on your personal profile.
Instead of drawing attention to yourself or your child, you can act as a catalyst by bringing the information to other people who will spread the information you found.
Online is fine, but what about your community?
There are simple things you can do at your work, at your child’s school, or with local businesses.
You can “go blue” on November 14th (World Diabetes Day).
What does it mean to “go blue”? November 14th is Dr. Frederick Banting’s birthday. He’s kind of a big deal in the T1D world, since, without his insulin discovery in 1921, there wouldn’t be a T1D world.
Prior to 1921, a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. Now, as difficult as it is to manage, it’s treatable. That’s something to celebrate.
It’s simple. Talk to your boss, the principal, the local grocery store manager. See if they’re willing to do a “blue shirt day” on November 14th. Ask if they’d put up some posters about T1D and/ or send them out in emails to staff and students.
Here, I’ll get you started with a few posters about Signs and Symptoms of T1D, World Diabetes Day, and Common Misconceptions about T1D, that you can print off and use:
Other ways to “go blue”
Sometimes, November 14th lands on a weekend. Because of that, there’s an alternative. Some people “go blue” every Friday during the month of November.
Naturally, the simplest thing to do is wear a blue shirt. But it doesn’t stop there. Many people will wear a blue hat or headband, dye their hair blue, or paint their nails blue.
It’s never too late to start. It’s not too late to ask your community to participate in World Diabetes Day.
And please don’t get discouraged. You may or may not get the response you’re hoping for. Even if you get very little feedback, even if you get no “likes” on your posts, people are reading them. People are listening.
It could be one of your posts that causes someone to get symptoms checked. You might stop someone from forwarding “natural cures”, telling diabetes jokes, or minimizing someone’s diagnosis.
I know you didn’t sign up for this, but you’re a T1D expert now. Share what you have learned with the world!
Act today to change tomorrow.
~ Leah
What do you do for Diabetes Awareness Month? Let us know in the comment section!!
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