Youth Leadership Training in South Korea

One thing that never ceases to amaze me in diabetes conferences is all the love and support a room full of strangers can share with one another.

An emotional friendship forms in a matter of minutes, seconds even.

It forms because we know

These are the only people who truly understand our day to day struggles.

These are the only people who we can console with, confide in, open up to.

These are the only people who could possibly and truly empathize with us.

We imminently broke the ice after a session of introducing ourselves, each finding a common trait that isn't our diabetes, with at least one person in that room. As the day progressed, bonds started to form and by the evening we were all speaking with each other as though we've known each other our entire life. We ended the day by hearing each others' life encounters over a beer at the pub just around the corner to our hotel.

The next day the vibrant energy in the room was radiating. We picked up ample of advocacy skills along the way, perhaps the most commendable was that of Renza Scibilia and Chris Aldred discussing stigmatization and discrimination in relation to diabetes. Upon asking how many people have ever been discriminated because of their diabetes in their opening statement, unsurprisingly almost the entire room had their hand up. Just with that, we knew that that session would hit home. Each speaker taught us something new, something that we can use in our upcoming advocacy journey, but more importantly in our day to day life. A networking session later, a few YLD trainees formed part of the 350 participants for a 5K run/ walk with the aim of raising awareness about type 2 prevention. Despite a few taking a more competitive approach, the majority of us walked alongside each other, dancing and sharing a few jokes along the way.

On my final day, we started brainstorming and working on our individual projects, sharing ideas and getting support from some wonderful mentors who were in our position just two years ago. We also had the opportunity to listen to a few previous projects, to see the influence and effect of these projects.

Now although I am a VERY emotional person, my heart was broken leaving the place and moreover, leaving all those amazing characters I met, behind. I was among the first people to leave the place and so I had to initiate the farewells. Knowing that I might not be seeing a few of those people again really left me sombre. However, I am pretty sure I will be hearing a lot from them and their success stories and look forward to collaborating with a few others in the near future.