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Pamela Iweze Kingdom Children Foundation PIKCF will celebrate 5 years of transformation and impact in the lives of children through advocacy, health and hygiene awareness this December In Lagos.
To commemorate the anniversary celebrations, it plans to organize a walk/fitness event in May this year, tagged Walk For Diabetes in collaboration with key stakeholders both local and international in the diabetes ecosystem.
The objective of the program is to use the universal symbol of sports and its ability to bring people together as a social vehicle for impact and mass awareness.
“The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that globally, more than 1.2 million young people under 20 years have Type 1 diabetes and approximately 184,100 new cases are diagnosed each year. In another study in 2021, there were about 8·4 million individuals worldwide with Type 1 diabetes: of these 1·5 million (18%) were younger than 20 years. Here in Nigeria, over 5.8% of the population are people living with diabetes.
Sadly, diabetes awareness and screening programmes are very few across most states in
Nigeria” says Pamela Iweze, Educationist and Founder of the Pamela Iweze Kingdom Children Foundation.
The Foundation has been involved in advocacy and awareness projects centered around health and hygiene in local communities for five years now.
PIKCF have organized events and collaborated with local community development associations CDA and the Nigeria Army via its command secondary schools in Ojo Military Cantonment. In 2019, it organized a Dental hygiene program on children’s day to educate and enlighten the students on oral hygiene.
Over 350 students attended and benefited from the lecture.
In 2021, in conjunction with the Nigeria Army, it engaged over 700 secondary school girls from Command Secondary School Ojo in a Menstrual Hygiene program tagged ‘’Pad a Girl Child. The girls were enlightened on the importance of genital care and menstrual hygiene. Last year, it teamed up with the CDAs in the Agbado Oke Odo Local Community Development area in Lagos.
This time, it organized a health outreach and awareness program to sensitize people on the chronic disease called Diabetes and the steps to take to manage it.
“Millions of Nigerians are diabetic but are yet to be diagnosed and treated.
According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), two-thirds of people with diabetes in Africa are undiagnosed. This is a big challenge for all of us.
However, we are not daunted by the task because we see an opportunity to be significant and also create an impact. And I believe that together we will achieve our collective goals with support and collaboration from the International Diabetes Foundation IDF, the Diabetes Association of Nigeria DAN, and the Endocrine and Metabolism Society of Nigeria EMSON”.
