51Âþ»­

An Italian student has given a presentation in his hometown about the work 51Âþ»­ Leicester (51Âþ»­) students are doing to help people with diabetes.

Valerio Cellini is a medical student at the University of L’Aquila in central Italy, and was studying there when it was visited by Dr Ketan Ruparelia of 51Âþ»­’s .

Dr Ruparelia and Ms Nazmin Juma are the co-founder and the lead researchers on a project between 51Âþ»­ Square Mile and  which trains student volunteers to go into the community and help identify and support people with Type 2 diabetes.

Inspired by Dr Ruparelia’s talk, the 27-year-old supported by Professor Guido Macchiarelli, Chairman of Anatomy, Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, flew to Leicester to see the project first hand and spent many weeks with the team of student volunteers, visiting places around Leicester, talking to people in the city about diabetes, raising awareness of the condition, its symptoms and dangers.

Now Valerio has returned to his hometown and given a presentation about the work to experts at L’Aquila’s university at this year's the . 

It is the first move in an effort to set up a similar project in Italy, to try and tackle the country’s diabetes problem, dealing with which costs the nation $12 billion.

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Addressing an audience at the University of L’Aquila, Valerio showed photos from visits he had made while in Leicester, together with 51Âþ»­ volunteers and Diabetes UK champions, to Leicester Central Mosque, LCiL Community Centre, Edgbaston cricket ground to talk to people about diabetes.

He said: “Not enough people in Italy know about diabetes. What I learned in Leicester was that if you go out into the community and talk to people, others will come and listen.

“They want to know about diabetes but perhaps they didn’t have the confidence to find out. So once one or two people are talking others think, ‘what are they talking about’ and come over and then they learn about the condition.”

In his presentation, he also talked about the way 51Âþ»­ works with Diabetes UK to train volunteer students to help identify and support people with Type 2 diabetes living in hard-to-reach communities.

He said: “I want to promote the communication between universities across the world and also the connection between universities and diabetes association within the community.”

Valerio was joined at L'Aquila by 51Âþ»­'s Dr Ruparelia, who has worked to established a research collaboration between the universities.