Stories and News

My name is Peter Anzovule Lagu. I am 12 years old. I come from Bweyale, Uganda. I have lived with type 1 diabetes since 2017.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has altered the way in which people with chronic illnesses interact with the world. While for most this means virtual doctors’ visits or increased emphasis on social distancing measures, for soon-to-be 13-year old Peter Anzovule Lagu and thousands of other children with type 1 diabetes in Africa, COVID-19 means a treacherous but imperative search for...

I grew up in Kajjansi, a major suburb of Uganda’s Capital, Kampala. My beginnings although not wealthy, were comfortable with no real worry in the world. Like many city slickers, my purview was limited to Kampala, Entebbe, and Jinja–any town outside these 3, might as well have been another country. I lived what I retrospectively consider a privileged life.

Not one single day goes by that I do not think about a cure for Type 1 diabetes. I drift off into daydreams, playing what-if games, but I quickly snap back into reality because I live in a world that I call “between-now-and-a-cure,” my in-between-world. This is a world where even if a cure is discovered today it would be another 30 years before it reached my doorstep.

When I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (T1D) at age 19, I felt my life had hit a dead end and I would never amount to anything in life. I had spent a full 19 years of my life without inhibitions, without the remotest thought of T1D or the slightest knowledge about the condition, yet here I was...

On a hot August day under the shade of a leafy tree, Derrick Byamugisha shares his perspective on the chronic disease he’s lived with since he was a boy. It’s Day 2 of Camp Tuyinza, the first incarnation of an education camp for children living with Type 1 diabetes sponsored by the Sonia Nabeta Foundation.

Robinah Namutebi sits upon the floor of the tiny clay-brick shack that doubles as her home and a small store offering simple household wares to her neighbours in the Ugandan village of Tiribogo, about 40 km from the sprawling, tangled capital city, Kampala. She is strikingly beautiful, though there is sadness and pain behind her cloudy eyes and her...

The traffic in Kampala, the sprawling capital of Uganda on the northern shore of Lake Victoria, is a tangled mass. Like a ball of yarn wrapping in and out of itself, it becomes worse the harder the mass of humanity tries to pull through it. I’m stuck in the middle of it late on a Thursday night. My 14-year-old daughter...

As the baby of a large family, my sister, Sonia, was the apple of everyone’s eyes. Affectionately called “Sunny Sunshine,” her ever-present smile and enormous heart made her easily a favorite sibling and best friend to each of us, and most certainly my 4-year-old nephew’s dream of a mom. Witty and with a wicked sense of humor, she could...