A virtual walk for diabetes
July 7, 2010 by admin
Eight years ago, Solomon Awashish walked 1400 km to raise awareness about diabetes in Eeyou Istchee. This year, he is embarking on a different kind of walk. This 'virtual walk' of 378 km will take him from his hometown of Mistissini to Nemaska, site of the 2010 Regional General Assembly in August. The distance walked is shorter, but the diabetes problem has gotten worse.
"We want diabetes to be the main agenda for our Cree leaders. We need to address this issue immediately and prevent diabetes from affecting our children, grandchildren and future generations.," says Awashish, Chronic Disease Prevention program officer for Cree Public Health. "I started my 378 km virtual walk on June 20. I plan to physically walk the final stretch and reach Nemaska during the Annual General Assembly to present our (CBHSSJB-Public Health‘s) Diabetes Prevention Strategy and ask our Cree leadership to make Diabetes Prevention the top priority for Eeyou Istchee."
Awashish says it is easy to join him on his virtual walk. "You do not need to physically walk from Mistissini to Nemaska. You can do it from where you live and walk the whole or part of the 378 km journey. You can walk, jog, bike, row…anything you want as long as you are moving on your own power and burning body fat. I would really appreciate if you joined me on this journey."
Follow Solomon on his virtual walk: http://twitter.com/solawashish
This collection, Cree Health, by Public Health Department of the Cree Health Board is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada license.