Dear Supporters

Thank you very much for the very generous support that you
have given to the Botswana Diabetes Partnership Project.

We are incredibly grateful for your contribution.

There have been some to the plans for the project in the
last few weeks and we would like to take this opportunity to update you on
these.

We have been aware right from day one that we are organising
this project in the shadow of the global Covid-19 pandemic.  Thanks to the incredible science and the fast
roll out of the Covid vaccine programme in the UK we are now in a position
where we can return to a ‘normal’ way of living with Covid now accepted as a
part of the world that we now live in. However this is not the case in a number
of countries around the world.

During discussions with our colleagues in Botswana it has
become clear that their recovery from the pandemic is moving at a much slower
rate to that which we are experiencing in the UK. They have still not been able
to vaccinate children under the age of child and have restrictions in place
regarding the holding of large scale face to face gatherings like our diabetes
camp and the education symposium that we had planned to hold during the project
visit.

They do not believe that these would have been significantly
changed by the time of our proposed trip next year and therefore we have had to
have some hard discussions about the future of the project.

It is therefore with sadness that we must report that we had
to make the decision to cancel our plans to travel to Botswana in 2023. Without
the ability to hold the camp and to deliver the education symposium we do not
feel that we would be able to deliver the benefits of the project to all
participants and partners that we would be able to if both events were able to
go ahead.

We will maintain close communication with our colleagues in
Botswana and it is everyone’s desire that we will look at how we can develop
this partnership further once they are further down their journey with moving
out of Covid restrictions.

We do however have good news – we have managed to secure a
new partnership for our global health partnership work for children and young
people with diabetes. This partnership will be with our paediatric diabetes
colleagues at Tygerburg hospital in Cape Town in South Africa.

Our team of 12 young people with type 1 diabetes and our 16
diabetes health care professionals will travel to Cape Town in March 2023 and
will work with our colleagues and fellow young people with type 1 diabetes from
Tygerburg Hospital to help them to set up their first ever young people’s
diabetes camps. This is a very exciting opportunity and will enable us to share
the knowledge and experience that we have gained from having delivered diabetes
camps in the East of England for 10 years.

We will also have the opportunity to work with our diabetes
health care professional colleagues at Tygerburg Hospital to co-deliver a 3 day
education symposium on the management of type 1 diabetes in children and young
people.

We are absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to work
with the team from Tygerburg and are looking forward with enthusiasm to being
able to share the real benefits that children and young people with diabetes
can get from attending diabetes adventure and education camps.

We very much hope that you will be happy that your donation
will support us in this new partnership and look forward to sharing updates on
this exciting partnership opportunity with you on this page.

Thank you once again for your support

#botswanadiabetespartnershipproject2023