Five months to go to World Diabetes Day!

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Campaign posters now available

We have prepared three different posters to support the 2009 campaign's awareness goals and key messages. Aimed at the general public, the posters make use of pictograms to show the most obvious warnings signs of diabetes, the main modifiable risk factors for type 2 diabetes and suggest ways to delay or prevent type 2 diabetes through exercise.

Have a look at the posters and then let us know what you think through http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/facebook or worlddiabetesday@idf.org.

Both low and high-resolution versions of the posters are available for download. If you would like to produce a modified version, for example a translation, please contact worlddiabetesday@idf.org to request the source files. Please let us know how you will modify the poster and how it will be used.

The poster is currently available in English and will soon be produced in French and Spanish. Other language versions will be added as they become available.

Follow World Diabetes Day online

From up-to-the minute reports to the newsletter you're reading now, there are many ways you can follow World Diabetes Day online. The World Diabetes Day site provides news, activities, material and more in English, French and Spanish: http://www.worlddiabetesday.org.

• Look for the RSS/Subscribe links to receive site updates as they happen.
• The World Diabetes Day countdown messages are sent out with increasing frequency over the 6 months leading up to November 14. This newsletter is the second of our 16 countdown messages. We send out further messages at four, three and two months to go. From 50 days to go, we send out a message every 10 days. From 25 days we send it every five days. Another message is sent on World Diabetes Day and two more in the days that follow.
• Invite your friends and colleagues to follow the countdown by asking them to sign up at http://www.worlddiabetesday.org.
• Breaking news and daily updates can be found on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdd.
• Twittering yourself? Mark any campaign-related twitter with #wdd09.
• Join us on Facebook:
  • English: http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/facebook
  • French: http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/facebook-fr
  • Spanish: http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/facebook-es
• Find the Photo pool on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/wdd.
• Watch the YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/WorldDiabetesDay.

Monument challenge gets underway

In 2007, we asked people to include the lighting of a local building or monument in blue as part of their World Diabetes Day celebrations. This resulted in the lighting of 279 landmark buildings and monuments, including some of the World's most famous buildings and sites. In 2008, the number of participating sites exceeded 1100.

Once again in 2009, we would like communities and individuals to help bring diabetes to light by asking local landmarks to participate in the challenge. The landmark lightings provide a strong visual element to the campaign. The generation and use of images to attract media attention will be essential to drive local and global coverage. Find out more.

The first 28 monuments to confirm are already online. Please let us know when you have a confirmed lighting so that we can add it to our growing list.

How will you mark World Diabetes Day?

You don't need to light the most significant monument in your town to celebrate World Diabetes Day.

Every year people around the world come up with many different ways to involve the local community, engage the local media, and raise awareness of key diabetes issues among decision makers and the general public.

We encourage you to keep some common elements as part of your celebrations:

• Promote the blue circle – the global symbol for diabetes.
• Integrate the colour blue (pantone colour 279 or as near as possible) into your celebrations.
• Make sure that your events include an element of fun.

Take a look at the pictures that were contributed last year to get some great ideas.

• Read up on the global symbol for diabetes at http://www.diabetesbluecircle.org.
• Download the World Diabetes Day logo.

We will use this newsletter to share ideas from around the world. So whatever you decide to do this year, please share your plans with us and we will pass them on to the global diabetes community. We look forward to learning more about your plans for WDD 2009.