The new millennium was dawning, but the American Indians in California’s Santa Clara Valley weren’t in the mood to celebrate anything. Diabetes had exacted such a toll on their community that those left unscathed believed it wouldn’t be long before they succumbed to the disease, too.
The new millennium was dawning, but the American Indians in California’s Santa Clara Valley weren’t in the mood to celebrate anything. Diabetes had exacted such a toll on their community that those left unscathed believed it wouldn’t be long before they succumbed to the disease, too. Deeply concerned community members also feared a destructive cycle that would consume their children.
“They lived without hope,” says Ramin Naderi, director of Community Wellness and Outreach (CWO).
But now, hope is growing, thanks to some innovative thinking and the help of Nike.
CWO is a program affiliated with the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley (IHC). Naderi conceived of CWO because he saw that Western medicine wasn’t working in American Indian communities. The CWO model is holistic, addressing the whole person—body, heart, mind and spirit—while looking for the root causes of illness, not just its symptoms.
“Our model deals with generational, historical trauma created by the loss of tribal land, culture, religion, tradition and food sources,” Naderi says. “This health-care model needs to be standardized in all Native communities across the nation.”
Naderi hit upon the CWO model in his last year of graduate school in 2002. While studying kinesiology—the principles of mechanics and anatomy in relation to human movement—he saw diabetes sufferers going blind, getting limbs amputated, undergoing dialysis and enduring kidney failure. Fitness and nutrition resources to combat the crisis didn’t exist in the Native community. So through a series of evolutions and community involvement CWO was established in 2003, with initial funding from the Indian Health Service (IHS).
The approach is working, at least as reflected by the success of CWO’s award-winning Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) for prediabetic Native American adults. Since it launched in 2004, 50 percent of those who have completed the program are no longer prediabetic, says Jan V. Chacon, CWO’s Diabetes Prevention Program manager. “It’s given the community new hope.”
Significantly, the DPP has received a grant to fund a youth program that includes purchasing that Nike Air Native Shoes for program participants. The shoes, designed especially for the wider feet of most Natives, are ordered during the first session of DPP’s intensive 17-week program for prediabetic adults. For most, it is their first good pair of walking shoes. “It’s a big deal,” Chacon says. “In our culture we gift to honor people. The Nike shoes are a tangible way of telling people we believe in them.”
Read more:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/01/24/changing-diabetic-lives-one-pair-of-nikes-at-a-time-74047 http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/01/24/changing-diabetic-lives-one-pair-of-nikes-at-a-time-74047#ixzz1kUOVyi1W
The new millennium was dawning, but the American Indians in California’s Santa Clara Valley weren’t in the mood to celebrate anything. Diabetes had exacted such a toll on their community that those left unscathed believed it wouldn’t be long before they succumbed to the disease, too. Deeply concerned community members also feared a destructive cycle that would consume their children.
“They lived without hope,” says Ramin Naderi, director of Community Wellness and Outreach (CWO).
But now, hope is growing, thanks to some innovative thinking and the help of Nike.
CWO is a program affiliated with the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley (IHC). Naderi conceived of CWO because he saw that Western medicine wasn’t working in American Indian communities. The CWO model is holistic, addressing the whole person—body, heart, mind and spirit—while looking for the root causes of illness, not just its symptoms.
“Our model deals with generational, historical trauma created by the loss of tribal land, culture, religion, tradition and food sources,” Naderi says. “This health-care model needs to be standardized in all Native communities across the nation.”
Naderi hit upon the CWO model in his last year of graduate school in 2002. While studying kinesiology—the principles of mechanics and anatomy in relation to human movement—he saw diabetes sufferers going blind, getting limbs amputated, undergoing dialysis and enduring kidney failure. Fitness and nutrition resources to combat the crisis didn’t exist in the Native community. So through a series of evolutions and community involvement CWO was established in 2003, with initial funding from the Indian Health Service (IHS).
The approach is working, at least as reflected by the success of CWO’s award-winning Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) for prediabetic Native American adults. Since it launched in 2004, 50 percent of those who have completed the program are no longer prediabetic, says Jan V. Chacon, CWO’s Diabetes Prevention Program manager. “It’s given the community new hope.”
Significantly, the DPP has received a grant to fund a youth program that includes purchasing that Nike Air Native Shoes for program participants. The shoes, designed especially for the wider feet of most Natives, are ordered during the first session of DPP’s intensive 17-week program for prediabetic adults. For most, it is their first good pair of walking shoes. “It’s a big deal,” Chacon says. “In our culture we gift to honor people. The Nike shoes are a tangible way of telling people we believe in them.”
Read more:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/01/24/changing-diabetic-lives-one-pair-of-nikes-at-a-time-74047 http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/01/24/changing-diabetic-lives-one-pair-of-nikes-at-a-time-74047#ixzz1kUOVyi1W
