I'll say this straight up. We're living in tumultous times right now and it's completely okay to reach out for help if you feel depressed, anxious, scared, worried irrespective of whether you're a person with diabetes or a caregiver. A lot of 'well meaning' yet obviously ignorant friends, family and members of the diabetic community may sometimes give advice like, "be positive" or "don't look at everything negatively" without taking the effort to realise that a person with mental health issues did not choose to have them and cannot simply wish it away by 'positivity'. Seeking help does not make you weak, stupid or broken - it makes you stronger.

It's okay not to be okay and we're here to hear you

Join us this Sunday evening, 7th June for an Art Workshop by Rohan who will teach us how to paint with beetroot! Register here and challenge your friends and family to join in too!

Here's what our month was like at Blue Circle Diabetes Foundation :

Blue Circle Buddy Project

Psychosocial helpline for people with diabetes
Online helpline : https://www.bluecircle.foundation/buddies

We are here to hear! We understand that the lockdown can create and exacerbate distress and common mental health issues like depression and anxiety. The Blue Circle Buddy Project, an initiative of the Blue Circle Diabetes Foundation is the first psychosocial helpline exclusively for people with diabetes and their families in India. We are a volunteer-led, free, multilingual and online helpline run by people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes and caregivers who have been trained by the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy and Chellaram Hospital - Diabetes Care & Multispeciality Pune in providing basic psychosocial and diabetes support. Our volunteers are fluent in English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil and Punjabi. We've recently been appreciated by the IDF - International Diabetes Federation too!

Share the helpline link with anyone you think might benefit or use it yourself.

Blue Circle Workshops

Our workshops are free and open for all, even non diabetics! Join in, have fun and learn new things. Sign up as a member and stay tuned in to our social media to know of upcoming workshops.

Functional Training Workshop

A sweaty and intense session led by coach Kiran who put the 'fun' in functional training.

Emotional Health Workshop

Psychotherapist Pooja spoke about the importance of emotional health, especially in the times of lockdown.

Women's Health Workshop

As part of Project Gaia, our inititave to empower women and girls with diabetes in India, we brought on board Dr Pranita Darade, a gynaecologist to conduct a session on menstrual health for the ladies.

Foot Care Workshop

Preventive Foot Care Expert Kavitha KV from Chellaram Hospital conducted a wonderful and fully packed workshop with tips on the best ways to take care of your feet with diabetes. We had a lovely, interactive session with a lot of questions.

Regional language videos

Together we're going to make sure language is never a barrier in diabetes self management. Check out Neha's video in Marathi.

Ruchika explains the same thing in Punjabi.

...and Rohan in Hindi.

While Shalini speaks in Kannada to make sure our voices are heard loud and clear and in every part of the country.

No one should suffer because they don't understand English. Bharat explains using a glucometer in Sindhi.

Snehal leads the way with basics of diabetes management, how to use a syringe.

The Sugar Diaries

The Sugar Diaries is our online interview series where we talk about diabetes and chat with everyday heroes living with the condition. Episode 6 was our first interview in Marathi. Snehal and Madhura interviewed their T1 friend Neha from Pune who is a classical dance choreographer and teacher.

In episode 7, Madhura and I go from regional to international! Four people with type 1 diabetes from four different continents of the world talk about how Covid has impacted diabetes on a personal and community level for them. Our guests, Lucy and Gavin joined in for the chat from Tanzania and the UK respectively.

7 Day mental health challenge

Thank you all for your very enthusiastic participation with photographs, videos and screenshots of all the challenges.

Fun video

Bored at home? Nothing to do? Watch this fun video featuring our community T1 members, conceptualised by Mahek.

Blogs

Read our blog here. We write about everything from recipes to people's stories, technology and everything diabetes!

Check out our video review on the Miao Miao 2 :

May campaign : #DiabetesAndMentalHealth

May is Mental Health Awareness month and though there's a lot of information available about mental health in general, we wanted to specifically talk about diabetes and mental health and make a noise, see Chhavi's video for more.

Kulsum talks about the importance of mental health in diabetes.

Sneha talks about her journey and the importance of doing what works for you and most importantly, reaching out for help.

Parinaaz makes some very valid points on living with diabetes and managing the stresses that come along with it.

Lovely video by our community member, Shalet who is T1 and a mental health professional too.

Mayur shares his thoughts and sings a song for us too!

Keep sharing your photos, videos and thoughts with us as always and tell us your experiences on our monthly topics (stay tuned for our June topic!). Upload your content through the Blue Circle Diabetes app. We want to hear from you!

Connect with us!

Join our Facebook support group, like and follow our page, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram and Twitter too! If you would like to share and contribute content upload it to the Blue Circle app and don't forget to check out our website and helpline too!