Context & key figures
Diabetes affects 4 million French people today, a figure that has multiplied by 6 in just 30 years. 90% have type 2 diabetes and nearly 700,000 people with diabetes do not know their status.
The causes of this increase are directly linked to changes in lifestyles in developed countries and to the combination of both social and environmental factors: overweight, obesity, lack of physical activity, sedentary lifestyle.
Diabetes also strikes the most socially vulnerable, with prevalence rates for example much higher in the most disadvantaged cities.
(9% of health spending in Europe)
The role of the French headquarters
The head office of Santé Diabète in Grenoble ensures the overall coherence of our general strategy with the various field delegations in Africa, but also in France, where we have been carrying out various pilot actions since 2011.
The headquarters allows us to structure all of our missions, at the administrative, HR, technical and financial levels.
It also coordinates our advocacy, nationally and internationally, in order to influence public institutions and policies for better consideration of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the North as in the South.
Our action in France
In France, the association's actions have enable to raise awareness among tens thousands people and have followed three main axes :
The organization of conferences, exhibitions, debates screenings
Pilot awareness raising on diabetes and the means to prevent it for the population of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, but also to increase the knowledge on the problems of this disease in Africa, in particular through school activities which provide a cross-perspective on the evolutions of our lifestyles in the North and the South and their consequences on our health.
Sharing the expertise developed in the South, in particular through the adaptation of therapeutic education and prevention tools for the French population (cartoon What is diabetes, Nutriquizz board game, one-day booklet with Ami & Bouba ...)
An awareness raising action on health and international solidarity carried out in schools in Grenoble
A workshop on diet balance with isolated underaged carried out in collaboration with the association “Cuisine sans frontières”.
Results obtained in 2021
- Organization of actions in schools of Ouagadougou and Grenoble: actions to prevent diabetes risk factors were carried out between students from the schools of Grenoble and Ouagadougou: 68 students benefited from this intercultural exchange.
- Organization of actions for adults in professional integration: in 2021, we led training on diabetes and its risk factors and on the prevention of the latter based on workshops on diet with adults in career path.
- Organization of actions with precarious populations: with l’Echoppe and the precarious health center of the city of Grenoble, we trained the volunteers of l’Echoppe and the city nurse and carried out diabetes prevention actions for people benefiting from food distributions.
- Organization in Grenoble of a meeting of French-speaking experts on diabetes
2020 - 2023ACTIVITIESIN FRANCE
The 2020 - 2023 program agreement will also aim to strengthen the use in the north of the expertise developed in the south. This will result in the development of a real advocacy center at Santé Diabète headquarters. It will help strengthen advocacy actions, in France and internationally, to defend better access to prevention and care while defending the rights of people with diabetes (link to the advocacy page) plaidoyer)
A local territorial anchorage in France
Our organization also draws its legitimacy and strength from its anchoring in local dynamics, in Grenoble, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and in cross-border territory, in particular through these collaborations with the University and hospitals of Geneva. These roots are essential and help nourish our organization to make it more effective in the changes it brings, the results it aims for, and the struggles it leads. It is because we are able to draw inspiration from our practices and experiences from other geographical and cultural spaces, that we can build bridges and forge links, fight against discrimination, educate for global citizenship, and take action to respond to the triple health/food/production challenge. This capacity will allow us to create a real territorial laboratory around the Alpine furrow with the Grenobloise structures, and those of the Auvergne Rhône Alpes region (such as the Savoie metropolitan hospital) and Geneva (Geneva hospitals, University of Geneva). The objective is therefore to work together on common issues (Food, Health, Environment) today in the North and in the South.
Achieving these objectives will involve :
- A prevention program from north to south, made up of 12 sessions, intended for students from 24 primary schools in Grenoble (France) 24 écoles primaires de Grenoble (France), addressing good health behaviors in schools while deconstructing representations and prejudices about food and modern Africa. For half of the classes, an exchange will be organized with classes and students from Ouagadougou schools in Burkina Faso who are facing the same health issues.
- A prevention program which will enable awareness raising among a target audience of sub-Saharan origin in diabetes risk factors and good behavior in terms of balanced diet.
- Raise awareness among the general public about diabetes in both North and South, its risk factors and its means of prevention through the establishment of 15 public events, events targeting students, associative partners, a photographic exhibition and 3 conferences.
- Identification of health structures and professionals (hospitals, azalea nursing networks, municipal health centers, etc.) who wish to develop an action targeting populations and patients of Sub-Saharan Africa. Santé Diabète will offer the sharing of tools developed in the South and support for the methodology for using these tools
This France program is supported by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the City of Grenoble.
Download the presentation sheet for more information on this program
Testimony
Pascale Trouve
Math teacher for allophone students in Grenoble (Lycées Mounier and Jean Jaurès)
"I noticed that the students in my classes (made up of unaccompanied foreign minors, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa) had little reference to food and ate the same thing all the time (starchy food, fast food, etc.).
So I asked Santé Diabète to set up a project to raise awareness on the importance of a balanced diet on health. This workshop allowed them in a very concrete way to make links between the eating habits of their country of origin and those discovered in France, but also to understand what diabetes was and how to prevent it. "
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