Living with type 1 diabetes herself, Lucy Johnbosco is using advocacy, education, and community engagement to challenge misconceptions and improve diabetes care in Tanzania. 

For Lucy Johnbosco, improving diabetes care starts with something very simple: making it normal to talk about diabetes. 

Lucy is a journalist, writer, diabetes educator, and founder of Diabetes Consciousness for Community (DiCoCo), a Tanzanian organisation dedicated to raising awareness and supporting people living with diabetes. She is also living with type 1 diabetes herself and has done so for most of her life. 

Challenging Misconceptions About Diabetes 

Over the years, she has witnessed how misconceptions about diabetes continue to shape people’s lives. In many communities, diabetes is still associated with stigma, myths, and misunderstanding. Some people believe that only older adults can develop diabetes, while others associate the condition with personal failure or even supernatural causes. 

Rather than accepting these misconceptions, Lucy decided to challenge them. 

Speaking Up and Raising Awareness 

Her first experiences as an advocate began while she was still a student. After returning to school following a serious diabetes-related illness, she found herself confronted by rumours and speculation about her health. Instead of remaining silent, she stood in front of her classmates and explained what type 1 diabetes was and what it meant to live with it. What began as a personal explanation became the start of a much broader commitment to diabetes awareness. 

Today, that commitment reaches far beyond the classroom. Through her organisation, media work, and community engagement, Lucy works to create environments where people feel comfortable discussing diabetes openly. 

“My first objective is to create an environment where it is normal to talk about diabetes,” she explains. “Information is there, but the question is: is it the right information?” 

Using Evidence to Improve Diabetes Care 

This focus on communication also shapes her views on research and health systems. While access to medicines remains important, Lucy believes that understanding people’s experiences is equally essential. 

The Early-Career Researcher Network on Type 1 Diabetes brings together early-career researchers from low- and middle-income countries to strengthen collaboration, build research capacity, and improve the use of data for better diabetes care. 

As part of the network, she has become increasingly engaged in discussions about data and evidence. For Lucy, the challenge is often not the absence of data, but whether the right data is being collected, used, and translated into better services. 

“Data should help us identify the gaps,” she says. “It should help us understand what people living with diabetes need beyond medication and how services can be improved.” 

Through the network’s webinars, collaborative assignments, and cross-country exchanges, researchers, clinicians, and advocates are working together to strengthen the evidence base for type 1 diabetes across Sub-Saharan Africa. Lucy sees this as an opportunity to ensure that patient experiences become part of the conversation alongside clinical and health system data.

Building Stronger Communities for People with Diabetes 

For her, better diabetes care is not only about stronger health systems. It is also about stronger communities, better information, and creating spaces where people feel able to speak openly about the realities of living with diabetes. 

Because meaningful change, she believes, begins when people are willing to start the conversation.