Every week, I buy the local paper and try to keep up with events and news around me. Every week, I notice all the sponsored walks, cycles, swims, etc. organized to raise money for charity. I notice all the photos of people exchanging very large cheques too.
I know they are all deserving causes but why does my cause not feature as much in peoples’ minds? We rarely see people raising money for diabetes. I’ve been trying to figure out why.
At first, I thought it was because those other charities were about saving lives. But diabetes has the potential to ruin and end a life too; so it can’t be that.
But maybe people who do not have diabetes aren’t aware that diabetes can ruin a life? This could be possible.
Maybe, it’s because people without diabetes don’t know anyone with diabetes? This has to be impossible because it’s estimated that 200,000 people in Ireland have diabetes.
Or maybe people who don’t have diabetes don’t advocate for people with it because they feel it’s a self-inflicted disease? But nobody asks for diabetes, especially not small babies. Surely this isn’t the reason?
Or maybe, it’s because diabetes is one of the few diseases out there where the emphasis is on “self-care”, and maybe that extends to raising the much needed funds ourselves???
Whatever the reasons people do not think to raise money for diabetes might be; I can’t help feeling sad about them. I form pictures in my head of the faces of diabetes; the small babies, the children, the teenagers trying to fit in, the adults just getting on with their lives and those adults getting old, living in fear of developing a complication of diabetes.
That’s what it is! A lot of us blend in too well and we pretend that we don’t need any help and therefore we don’t ask people for money. So how do I fix this?