Hello everyone, my name is Adriana, and I'm a senior in high school. This year I am going to do my senior project based on living with type 1. I was wondering if i could have your input on any ideas i could use for the project. Here are a few things I had in mind.
-a social networking site (much like this one) that would just be for people with T1D
-A group for anyone and everyone who would like to help find a cure
-A group to educate people about type 1, lead by people with type 1
These are just some of my ideas, and if you have any that you think are a really great idea, I'd love to hear them!
I like the last one, a group to educate others about T1. This is not something you hear of, an educational outreach effort SPECIFIC to T1. So much of what we hear about in the media relates to T2 or lumps all "diabetes" together without describing the very different forms of the condition. T1 is a very specific condition in most cases and I know I face a lot of misconceptions about T1, which have gotten worse in the last few years (likely due to all the media coverage around T2 diabetes).
Most of those things exist already and many times over too.
How about an advocacy group that pushes for a cure. A group who will all call their congressmen about health insurance and cure.
Or a group to get us away from the chronic management approach to health care instead of investing money into cures. There is no money in cures. There are however, billions of dollars in chronic management of diabetes.
I think a project that lights a fire under people to get things to change is going to be more fulfilling and exciting for you to undertake !
Good luck with it and send us a link to what ever you do
I like your last idea. I'm glad you have the courage to work on a project that involves diabetes. If you are passionate about taking care of yourself and managing your health condition, I think the last option you listed would be great. Here is something you might want to add on: Imagine yourself as one of the leaders of that group and list all the goals you would like to accomplish and what you expect members of the group to learn :)
You could perhaps use the JDRF "Be T1 for a day" campaign which has several advantages: free, techno, engaging. It might be "disruptive" in school, as if it catches on and the teacher gets a class of 30 T1 all of whom are "alarming" at the same time, all hell might break loose but I could see that it could be very educational. You could study health policy in Social Studies ("OMG, in the UK, National Health only provides 4x strips/ day! I used that by 9:00 AM!"), carb counting in Math ("Lunch was 150G of carbs!! eeek!), exercise in PE (again, 30 kids all having hypos at once...) and other "tie ins" to raise awareness in the whole school at low cost, with some planning and management?
What's the scope of your project? To give a proposal of how you'd build one of these things? to find one and tell the rest of your class about it? Or to make one for yourself? Does it need to involve a group of people?
My immediate thought is that if you want to explain what it's like living with type 1, you might consider a blog or a video blog--something that is like a "day in the life of a person with type 1"--however that doesn't involve a group of people. If it were me, I'd probably do something like that, but I want to write if I grow up.
If you can study a group that works for a cure or educates--you could go with JDRF, this group, or even the ADA.
If you need to come up with a group of people who are type 1 who are doing something that you spearhead . . . I'm not sure I'd know how to start. I don't know how to come up with a site like this--but I suspect it involves a lot of work.
