Jerry Gore and his team of insulin dependent young people are getting ready for their 2014 Insulin Challenge. They will be climbing Mont Blanc during the Chamonix Mountain Festival to raise money for the charity Insulin for Life, who help Third World diabetics for whom insulin is simply not available. But in the meantime, Jerry has been busy at a diabetic camp in the Philippines…

“It was a huge success,” says Jerry. “We took 30 children aged 5-22yrs and literally gave them back their lives - we filled them full of joy, love, technical diabetic information and most importantly - insulin! Ultimately we gave them and their parents (the ones who could afford the journey) HOPE for their future! We tested their blood sugars each day and it was so great to see the numbers decrease with training.”

The normal blood sugar range is 102-110mg/dl for non diabetics. At the start of the camp, most of the boy’s results were in the “472 mg/dl. Non diabetics never rise higher than 125 mg/dl and by the end of the camp the boys were starting to get more normalised figures in the low 200′s.

“Hopefully less than 5% of these children will die by this time next year and most will live until their fifties if they can continue their treatment,” says Jerry. “whereas untreated Type 1 Children die within a year of contracting the condition.”

The organisation that IFL works with in the Southern Philippines is called ‘Sweet Alert.’ Formed by a band of courageous mothers who were determined to do something about so many young children dying so needlessly and this was their first diabetic camp.” It’s tough, intensive work but IFL is working hard to help Sweet Alert grow and organise more camps,” explains Jerry. “Interestingly I learned that a lot of successful young diabetics go on to become diabetics health care workers themselves. And so the circle of life continues.”

Read also about Jerry Insulin Challenge 2014.