Helping kids in Ghana manage diabetes - Stavros Niarchos Foundation

The Sonia Nabeta Foundation has worked since 2016 to help kids, primarily in Uganda, manage type 1 diabetes to avoid hospitalization—or worse—from undiagnosed and unchecked progression of their condition.

With support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), the organization recently launched a new program in Ghana to support kids and families with medication, education, and help living with the disease.

Since the new Sonia Nabeta Foundation clinic in opened in November 2022 in La Nkwantanang Madina, Ghana, near Accra, it has diagnosed and served 50 kids. It joins 31 clinics across Uganda that served some 2,500 young people in 2022.

Untreated, type 1 diabetes can lead to serious symptoms like heart disease and damage to the eyes, kidneys, feet, and nerves. Where familiarity with the disease and the means to treat it, like insulin and glucometers, are absent, the result is deaths that could have been prevented.

In honor of its namesake, who lost her life to type 1 diabetes in 2015, the Sonia Nabeta Foundation works to expand access to the knowledge, medicine, and equipment that can help ensure they are indeed prevented. The new clinic in Ghana will serve as the hub of a network of five in the country, served by diabetes nurses, peer educators, a social worker, and a pediatric endocrinologist—of whom there are currently only a small handful in the country, making access difficult.

Expanding access to critical health care is a major ongoing focus for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, particularly through our ongoing global SNF Health Initiative.