Author
Marion Wilkens, Chairwoman of Alpha1 Germany eV, as appeared in Alpha1 Journal 1/2024.
Our last in-person meeting was in October 2023. It was a very intensive gathering full of good ideas and many jointly conceived projects (See report in Journal 2/2023).
Our first online meeting in March 2024 focused on picking up where we left off and following up on the projects. Applications need to be submitted to secure funding for such projects.
However, it is not always easy to make this possible alongside living with the illness, everyday life in general, and sometimes also alongside professional life.
As a result, we were unable to meet the first deadline for submitting funding applications and must concentrate on having projects such as a substitution flyer and assistance with rehabilitation applications ready at the next in-person meeting.
However, regardless of additional project work, the core tasks of self-help groups are the following: And if you are missing a group in your region, please contact us, we will be happy to support you in founding a new group.
You'll see, it's more fun than work, as you can tell from the smiling faces in our Zoom call.
We're eager to see what ideas emerge at our next meeting in Hanover. This time, the focus will be more on knowledge transfer and how I can connect with doctors in the region, and how a network can be helpful in this regard. We'll be happy to report on this in the next issue of the journal.
