Mother’s Day is fast approaching, and provides members and supporters of organizations such as ours with an opportunity to reflect on the role of mothers in disease prevention.
As we’ve discussed in this space before (and surely will again), the world is at a tipping point. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are killing millions and disabling millions more. 2011 is proving to be a turning point in terms of galvanizing the global health community around the issue of NCDs. We’re energized by the commitment and collaboration we’ve seen from groups such as the Global Health Council and NCD Alliance who are working in advance of the September UN NCD Summit to build momentum around this issue to ensure that actionable commitments result from the meeting.
The key to reducing the incidence of these diseases is prevention and lifestyle change. We can prolong millions of lives, save millions of livelihoods and improve entire national economies if we can help people to eat well, exercise more, and eschew tobacco. It will require cooperation in homes and schools, in hospitals, government offices and boardrooms around the world to create lasting change.
And that’s why we’ve chosen Mother’s Day for this message. Because some of us are mothers, and all of us have mothers, we know that moms help us to learn habits that last a lifetime.
This Mother’s Day, we thank our mothers for all they’ve done for us. Helping us, nurturing us, teaching us how to live, function and thrive.
Arogya World has started a new awareness campaign to thank our mothers by helping other mothers. We’re starting “Mothers Against Diabetes” groups in India – providing mothers with the tools, information and community support to encourage healthy eating at home and in their children’s schools.
You can learn more about it, join us, “like” us, make a donation and help us spread the word here:
We’re starting this work in India because diabetes is skyrocketing there. As the country benefits from amazing development in recent years, India’s people are also facing new health challenges in the form of an alarming rise in the incidence of NCDs. The fact is that 50 million Indians currently have diabetes, and this number is predicted (by the International Diabetes Federation) to rise to 87 million by 2030.
Mothers Against Diabetes is one small step, and we encourage you to check out the campaign, spread the word, and tell us what you think (in the comments below or at info@arogyaworld.org). It will take many small steps to create the giant leap we need to change the course of chronic disease. But we cannot go wrong by supporting mothers in the work they’ve been doing for millions of years – raising strong, healthy families.
This post is by Thea Joselow, digital media consultant at Arogya World.