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Today, the Changing Diabetes Bus stopped in The Hague, in the most central location you could imagine: ‘Het Plein’.
As being a Novo Nordisk Youth Panellist, I joined the Changing Diabetes Bus crew for today, together with my colleagues Justine, Wietske and Daniëlle. In the following, I would like to tell you about the things that happened during this day, as seen through my eyes.
Walking towards ‘Het Plein’, a very large white and bright box showed up in my view: the Changing Diabetes Bus, already surrounded by a lot of interested people, chatting with the crew of the Changing Diabetes Bus.
At the time the official program started, Søren Niegel (General Manager of Novo Nordisk in the Netherlands) welcomed (in Dutch, though he is originally Danish!) the guests: journalists, medical specialists, members of several diabetes organizations and also the Minister of Health: Drs. J.F. (Hans) Hoogervorst!
Different organisations gave several impressive presentations about facts and figures how pressing diabetes as an epidemic is. Our Minister of Health confirmed this statement by a short but striking speech. Afterwards, he received the Young Voices book by Wietske, the coordinative member of our panel and also an IDF Youth Ambassador.
On behalf of the Dutch Youth Panellists, I got the opportunity to give a (less official) presentation discussing a regular day out of my life with diabetes. Afterwards, we heard lots of supporting words from lots of different people that were there: giving us a strongly hopeful feeling for the future of diabetes!
After the official part of the day, the bus opened for everybody that was interested and entered the Bus. Surprisingly for me, so many people were not aware of all information, but were on the other side so interested and sometimes also shocked about the facts and trends that we put in the picture.
Today, the Changing Diabetes Bus crew has again done a great job in improving the awareness for diabetes!
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