I got an e-mail earlier today letting me know that Joe_Toucan was now following my tweets on twitter. When I get those messages I will usually click through and check out their profile. I check to see if the person is in the diabetes community in any way (because I almost automatically follow back if that is the case), or if they tweet about other stuff I might be interested in.That is how I found the “Joe Toucan Diabetes Project“, and immediately loved the idea. The project is headed by Rocky Lang, who has an impressive resume with background in film directing, screenwriting, producing, and authoring. His daughter also has type 1 diabetes.
I watched a quick introductory video (it’s about 6 minutes long). My 7 year old daughter came in when it was almost done, and saw two little girls (Mackenzie & Sydney Munman) doing mock BG tests and injections on Joe. She said “can we watch it from the start?”
It was immediately obvious that my daughter identified with Joe (can you blame her? Look at that guy! He’s awesome!).
He serves a couple of great purposes. First of all, he just looks like a great buddy to have for a young child just diagnosed. He also has a fake glucose meter, lancing device, and syringe, which help as training tools in a clinical setting, and might provide a little slice of understanding for that young person with diabetes.
I admittedly don’t know a whole lot about the project, or the folks behind the project, but I imagine that working with Joe Toucan beats the heck out of practicing injections into an orange. Take a look at www.joetoucandiabetesproject.org (link no longer active) for more information.
