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For families living with type 1 diabetes, diagnosis can bring fear, uncertainty and daily challenges that go far beyond medical treatment. Olaa Rady, an International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Fellow from Egypt who lives with type 1 diabetes and is also the mother of a child with the condition, has turned her personal experience into a powerful voice for awareness, peer support and stigma reduction.
When Olaa’s young daughter was in intensive care, she did not see only fear, pain or crisis. She saw a message she wanted her daughter to carry into the future. She took a photo in the intensive care unit (ICU) so that, when Rena grew up, she could see that even in hard times, it is still possible to smile. “It shows that hope is stronger than pain,” she recalls.
For many families affected by type 1 diabetes, diagnosis can arrive as a shock. It can bring hospital admissions, urgent decisions, new routines, fear of the unknown and a steep learning curve. For parents, this may mean learning how to care for a child while managing their own worry. For children and adolescents, it can mean growing up with a condition that requires constant attention, often in environments where understanding and support are limited.
For Olaa, that experience is both personal and shared. She describes how her family’s journey became the foundation for a wider mission: to help people living with diabetes feel informed, supported and less alone.
“I will show you how a person with diabetes can be a real voice to raise awareness, break the stigma and build support in the community,” she explains.
I will show you how a person with diabetes can be a real voice to raise awareness, break the stigma and build support in the community
In Egypt, the need for that voice has never been greater. An estimated 192,000 people are living with type 1 diabetes across all age groups in the country, including 69,000 children and adolescents aged 0–19. Behind each of those numbers is a person, a family, a school, a workplace or a community learning what it means to live with the condition every day.
“What I do, I help people live well by teaching them how to manage diabetes and giving mental health support,” she notes.
That combination of practical education and emotional support sits at the heart of her work. Diabetes management is often described in terms of medication, glucose monitoring, food, exercise and clinical appointments. All of these are essential. But Olaa’s message is that families also need confidence, reassurance and a place where they can speak honestly about fear, exhaustion and stigma.
The photograph of her daughter in the ICU became more than a family memory. It became a symbol of the kind of support Olaa wanted to offer others: not a denial of hardship, but a reminder that people can find strength in the middle of it.
“Hope is the power that helps us to get through any crisis,” she reflects.
That belief led Olaa to create Sokar Hayaa, an initiative shaped by her sense of responsibility toward her daughter and toward other families living with diabetes.
“I created Sokar Hayaa because I felt responsible for my daughter and every family living with diabetes,” she explains. “When you are in a community that has the same pain and is the same life, you feel stronger.”
Peer support cannot replace medical care, but it can help fill a gap that clinics alone cannot always address
For many people with diabetes, especially children and their caregivers, isolation can be one of the heaviest burdens. Families may feel that others do not understand the constant decisions involved in diabetes care. Children may face questions or judgement at school. Parents may carry anxiety in silence. Adults living with type 1 diabetes may feel pressure to appear in control even when the daily demands are overwhelming.
Peer support cannot replace medical care, but it can help fill a gap that clinics alone cannot always address. It can give people a place to ask practical questions, share experiences and hear from others who understand the emotional weight of the condition.
In just one year, Olaa began building that kind of space. She developed a social media page, created WhatsApp and Telegram communities, shared stories online and organised activities for children. She also joined mental health events to bring the voice of people with diabetes into wider conversations about well-being.
Her aim is simple but ambitious: to support and educate, with no personal agenda, and to create a safe environment where people can learn, connect and challenge stigma.
Stigma is a recurring theme in diabetes advocacy. It can appear in misconceptions about what caused diabetes, judgement about food choices, fear of injections or devices, or assumptions that people with diabetes are to blame for their condition. For people with type 1 diabetes, such misconceptions can be especially harmful because the condition is autoimmune and not impacted by lifestyle. Yet they may still encounter misunderstanding from peers, schools, workplaces and sometimes even within their own families.
Olaa's aim is simple but ambitious: to support and educate and create a safe environment where people can learn, connect and challenge stigma
The need for school-based understanding is recognised by IDF’s Kids and Diabetes in Schools programme, which identifies fear of being different, isolation, bullying and diabetes-related stigma as challenges that can affect children’s confidence and mental health. Egypt is one of the countries in the Middle-East and North Africa region with a government initiative requiring diabetes education in school curricula. It is also one of only three countries – alongside Türkiye and Bahrain – with an initiative or policy that provides diabetes education for all school staff.
Olaa’s work counters stigma by making lived experience visible. By speaking publicly as a person with type 1 diabetes and as a mother, she challenges the idea that diabetes should be hidden. By creating spaces for families to connect, she helps replace shame with knowledge and solidarity.
Her approach also reflects a broader shift in diabetes care: recognising people with diabetes not only as recipients of services, but as partners, educators and leaders. Lived experience-led initiatives can translate medical information into everyday language. They can identify practical barriers that professionals may not always see. They can support families between appointments, when many of the hardest decisions happen.
By speaking publicly as a person with type 1 diabetes and as a mother, Olaa challenges the idea that diabetes should be hidden
Olaa’s ambition is now to develop training programmes focused on diabetes education and mental health support, and to build safe environments that raise awareness and reduce stigma. Her vision is not only to help people survive diabetes, but to help them thrive with it.
That vision is particularly important for children and adolescents. A child diagnosed with type 1 diabetes needs more than a treatment plan. They need adults who understand the condition, schools that can support them, peers who do not shame them, and health professionals who see the whole child rather than only the numbers on a glucose monitor. Parents need education, but they also need reassurance that they are not alone.
“You don’t just give us medicine only,” she tells healthcare professionals. “You give us the life and support we need. You are the light in the dark tunnel.”
It is a powerful reminder that the best diabetes care is not only technical. It is relational. It depends on trust between people with diabetes, families, healthcare professionals and communities. It requires accurate information, access to treatment and emotional support and listening to people who live with the condition every day.
Olaa’s story shows how one person’s experience can become a source of strength for many others. A mother’s photograph from an ICU became a message of hope. A personal journey with type 1 diabetes became a community. A patient became an advocate, educator and voice for change.
The Fellowship programme of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) recognises dedicated professionals making a real impact in the field of diabetes – from research and education to advocacy and clinical care.
Through the programme, you’ll join a network of experts committed to strengthening the global diabetes response, advancing knowledge and supporting better outcomes for communities worldwide.
Whether your focus is research, education or frontline care, there’s a place for you in this growing community of experts.
Explore the IDF Fellowship categories
