When Aileen was diagnosed with diabetes she didn't receive any information about the condition. She eventually found information about her local Voluntary Group, which she joined and soon realised that she was not the only one left on her own. Since then she has worked with other volunteers in the Group to ensure that GPs surgeries and clinics have packs containing information about living with diabetes that they can give out to people recently diagnosed with diabetes.
"One of the things I'm particularly proud of is organising exercise classes for older people. To begin with the Voluntary Group funded the classes ourselves, but they were really popular and we were able to persuade our local NHS Trust to take over the funding and running of the classes.
"I volunteer because it's good fun and rewarding and it keeps me active and occupied in my retirement. The Group's next project is to run a Young People's Summit to bring together people in their teens and 20s with diabetes. They find it hard to get support, and can fall in the gap between being too old for children's services and too young for adult services which are often geared towards older people.
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