2022 Leadership Journey Project: Diabetes education and empowerment in schools
“It’s not diabetes that stops you from chasing your dreams. It’s the fear within you, that stands like a wall between the two. Break that wall!!!”
These are the words from Mridula Kapil Bhargava, a public health professional and alumna of Hadassah Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. She has a work experience of over 10 years in healthcare and is currently serving in multiple organisations as the team lead, public health consultant and Program Manager. Mridula is also the founder of Diabetes Fighters’ Trust, focused upon prevention as well as better management of Diabetes in urban and rural India using the concept of community ownership.
Mridula is passionate to help people with Diabetes better manage their condition by empowering them with the essential tools according to their individual as well as population needs. She herself has type-1 Diabetes from past 30 years and strongly believes that her personal as well as professional experience can extensively contribute towards Diabetes education, policy-making and patient empowerment.
Mridula was born and brought-up in New Delhi, India. She is a graduate in Biotechnology and also a post-graduate in Nano-Biotechnology. Her determination and fighters’ spirit has led her achieve a number of impressive accomplishments such as being among the top 50 leaders in Novartis Leadership Camp 2013, cover-girl of “THE WEEK” magazine (the largest circulated English news-magazine in India) (2013), and amongst the top 50 innovators in INTEL-DST Digital India Challenge 2015.
She received the prestigious Bakken Invitation Award in 2017-2018 from late Dr. Earl bakken for the zeal and idea to give back to the community.
Mridula is also the winner of “Diabetes Storytelling Lab in India 2021” hosted by World Diabetes Foundation and Dalberg Media, with support from USAID, for the idea on truck drivers community and type 2 diabetes.
