Around 500 people attended a fun and informative event at the Red Sea Mall in Jeddah on Thursday organized by the Young Initiative Group to raise awareness about diabetes.
Volunteers from the group distributed fliers, brochures and T-shirts to shoppers explaining everything they need to know about the illness.
“We targeted children and young people in this campaign to spread the message about the causes of diabetes because a lot of people and children have diabetes and don’t know about it,” said Maha Taher, cofounder of the Young Initiative Group (YIG).
“We also wanted to make this event fun for children to make it easy for us to have their full attention … we had them participate in some games and physical activities in addition to interacting with them and speaking to them about the definition of diabetes and its effects,” she added. “We also prepared a five-minute cartoon that shows animated people speaking about diabetes in an educated and informative way. We also had a booth full of doctors who collected blood samples from attendees and talked to them about their health,” said Taher.
Red Sea Mall’s ground floor had turned blue due to the balloons and decorations used for the event. “We used this color on purpose because it’s known to be the color of diabetes like the color pink is known to be the color of breast cancer,” said Abdulrahman Turjuman, a member of YIG.
The participation of the large number of people in the event showed that a lot of people are interested to know about their health, said Turjuman.
“We are willing to create more events and invite people if this helps raise awareness about diseases and other health or social issues,” he said.
RIMA AL-MUKHTAR
Arab News