Esperanza Academy has a large variety of extracurricular clubs to expand students’ knowledge and cater to their interests. One of those unique clubs is the Diabetes Club, containing both middle and high school students. The club received funding from the Cities Changing Diabetes and NovoNordisk grant for the Champions of Hope: Latinos Preventing Diabetes project, obtained by Nilsa Graciani Chief Community STEM Officer for Esperanza and Director of STEM and Medical Assisting at Esperanza College together with partners Jefferson, NAHN, SILAMP, and LMSA. From this funding, students were able to create an app to inspire their community towards healthy habits.
Ms. Sharpe, the students’ teacher overseeing the club, said, “The purpose of the app is to educate the public about diabetes prevention and education in a fun, interactive way, given the fact that Latinos have higher rates of diabetes and particularly Latinos in Hunting Park, according to recent research.” Each week, Ms. Sharpe would educate students about diabetes and the need for healthy habits with exercise, nutrition, and mental health. Students from the Health Sciences program at Esperanza College also participated in the club, serving as mentors to the younger students. The students decided to attend the Champions of Hope health fairs to host activities to educate their community on the disease. They also took the initiative with the app designing the interface, tasks, and content alongside Milk Crate, an app development company. The students are so invested in the program that some of them are spending part of their summer doing a health internship at Esperanza.
The club hosted a drawing contest to see who could come up with the best characters for their app. Two specific students, Alam Lantigua and Shaina Garcia-Jimenez won the contest, and you can see their drawings come to life if you download the app! The students from both Esperanza Academy and College received high praise at the variety of health fairs that they attended for their knowledge of the disease, and Esperanza is incredibly proud of them for making a positive change in their community in a tangible way.
You can download the Diabuddy app on the Apple Store here or the Google Play store here.
