Your diabetes NZ
Meet your advisory council Diabetes NZ’s Advisory Council is all important. Just who are they and what do they do? We talked to Advisory Council Chair Lyndal Ludlow.
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iabetes NZ’s Advisory Council is responsible for providing consumer and advocacy support for the CEO, and therefore the Board, on a range of issues affecting people with diabetes and their families. There are eight members of the Advisory Council, who all bring a wealth of lived experience to the organisation. Chair Lyndal Ludlow says, “Around the Advisory Council table are people who represent the Māori health sector, Pasifika communities, youth, clinicians, carers, and people with type 1. Everyone on the Council has a direct and immediate connection to living with diabetes.” The Advisory Council was first set up in 2012, but as the new
structure of Diabetes NZ evolves, the Council’s role is evolving too. Lyndal sees the Advisory Council’s role as ensuring that Diabetes NZ is connected and having two-way conversations with people who live with diabetes: “It’s essential that the higher-level advocacy and projects stay connected to the people that the outcomes will affect.” Advisory Council members put a lot of time into the council on behalf of their communities. There are monthly Zoom meetings, articles and submissions to read and write, and, of course, constant liaison with people who live with diabetes. “To keep the Board connected to the people they’re serving, the Advisory Council needs, in turn,
to remain connected to people living with diabetes and their daily lives. The realities of life with diabetes – for those who are diagnosed and for their support people – needs to be kept front and centre of all decisions made by the Board. "The Advisory Council also provides valuable support to the operational arm of the organisation, especially with respect to advocacy." Lyndal says, "In order to keep Diabetes NZ relevant and influential, the Advisory Council is continually looking for more ways to connect with those who are living with diabetes, and to ensure their voices are heard." If there are issues you would like to raise with the Advisory Council, please email dnzac@diabetes.org.nz.
This year we have welcomed pharmacist Dr Natalie Gauld to the Advisory Council, as well as Ativalu Lemuelu, who we introduce on the opposite page.
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DIABETES WELLNESS | Summer 2020
