8,480 walkers in Montes Claros

One cheerful morning, thousands of students, teachers and people from the community were crowding one of the main avenues in Montes Claros, Brazil for the yearly Global Diabetes Walk.

One cheerful morning, thousands of students, teachers and people from the community were crowding one of the main avenues in Montes Claros, Brazil, where Novo Nordisk has a production site, which is currently in expansion. This is how the World Diabetes Day was celebrated for the second time in town, with the Global Diabetes Walk and no rain at all, despite the weather forecast 80% of probability. It was just cloudy, which provided the walkers with a mild temperature around 22ºC and 25ºC.

The walk itself started at 9:00 AM (local time, equal to 12:00 GMT) and took 52 minutes to conclude. Students from 19 public schools joined the event. Academics from Physical Education and Nursery courses at two local universities engaged in the support team and helped to keep the young kids on the track as the crowd was following the "trio elétrico", the famous sound truck that is used in Brazilian carnival in many towns as a mobile stage on which bands play. Up from there, partners kept on saying messages related to diabetes prevention and awareness.

There were also some side activities, such as 1,000 glucose tests performed by the Municipal Health Authority as well as some workout and stretching provided by the Physical Education School. Other groups from the community, such as the local Diabetes Patients Association (Adnorte), which has 1,400 registered patients, also participated in the initiative as well as the community association from Eldorado, an outskirt in the neighbourhood of Site MOC, where an interesting and helpful foot-care prevention work is being done.

The number of walkers this year was surprisingly larger that in 2004, four times more. The walk was communicated to the community through radio spots, TV ads, and on bus-panels, mostly like it was last year, when 2,045 walkers joined it. “It could mean that the walk is something that does not belong to us. It now belongs to the city people,” says Aluisio Cunha, coordinator for Communication and World Diabetes Walk 2005.