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This podcast is presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC – safer, healthier people.

Welcome to this podcast series on diabetes, brought to you by the National Diabetes Education Program or NDEP. NDEP is a joint initiative of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. This podcast is taken from the NDEP video, Five Communities Reach Out.

My name is Lorelei Decoro and I am a Registered Nurse. And, I’m a tribal member from this reservation, but I’m also the Director of the Native American Diabetes Project. We’re a smaller reservation in size, but we’re also a reservation that’s heavily involved with fighting a war to stop diabetes. The National Diabetes Education Program is an important initiative for Indian country because of the epidemic we’re currently in with diabetes.

She was one of our elders. This is Ellie Hunter Eagle, here.

Here, two out of three adults over the age of 45 have already been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

My name is Georgia Gomez. I’m a community house representative and Emergency Medical Technician with Winnebago Tribe in Nebraska. I’ve seen too much of what diabetes does to our people.

The quilt is representing our ancestors that we lost. Hopefully, it’s a symbol. It can always be a reminder, but it also sets a goal for what we want in the future for our people. We want to be diabetes free.

This is the time that I’m going to tell you about myself, and this time I’m strong enough not to cry.

I believe that the answer to this epidemic, this diabetes epidemic, lies within our traditions and our culture. And this is what I based the rationale and the framework from which we’ve developed these diabetes Talking Circles.

Each one of us in this Talking Circle get to share our feelings of how we feel about diabetes and what we can do to help ourselves, help each other.

What we learned about being Native Americans that that gives us so much percent more a risk of getting diabetes.

Traditionally, we learned orally; we are an oral people. Our history is passed down orally. The way that we learned things was done orally, and so our Talking Circle allows that mechanism to continue -- where you learn about what diabetes is, its medications, how does it affect your body, and because of that, what you can do to prevent it. And it’s all done in an oral way.

Tribal Council took the leadership in our diabetes prevention. That allows tribal employees to work out three times a week to promote wellness amongst the tribal employees who are all, besides being tribal employees, heads of their families and community people.

I’m a member of the Winnebago Tribal Council here, which is the governing body for the tribe, and I come down here everyday before I go to lunch. The, the tribe allows people to exercise on company time, as a means to both maintain patients with diabetes and also to help prevent diabetes from occurring. I think it’s great.

Five, four, three, two, one, relax!

I think the best part of my job is being able to see the kids really benefit from this. When I see them come here, they’re learning things, they’re being physically active, we’re impacting their nutrition and their physical lifestyle. Typically, kids would go home. They sit in front of the television, they eat, and now, they’re coming here and they get lots of activity and they’re learning a lot of good things. If they can prevent diabetes and not get it, that’s our goal.

Diabetes has been devastating to our community. We look back at the people we’ve lost and we don’t forget them, we remember them. In their memory we’re motivated to build a world where that can be prevented.

To order your copy of the Five Communities Reach Out video, visit www.ndep.nih.gov or call the National Diabetes Education Program at 1-800-438-5383.

To access the most accurate and relevant health information that affects you, your family and your community, please visit www.cdc.gov.