Dubai: The Friends of Kidney Patients Association on Sunday launched its annual campaign aimed at raising awareness of the importance of drinking water in maintaining kidney health. The campaign will take place during September and October.
The activities of the campaign, launched at Al Shola Private School for Boys in Sharjah, will include a lecture during the morning assembly, in addition to distributing water bottles to students. The activities will start for the girls’ section of the School on Monday.
This is the fifth consecutive year that the association has held its awareness campaign on kidney health.
The campaign will also be held at the Social Services Department in Al Hamriyah, where it will include blood pressure tests and will bring awareness to the elderly on the importance of water to kidney health.
The association will organise an online awareness activity for the employees of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs in Sharjah on October 1 and 2. Electronic cards will be sent to all employees of the council to familiarise them with the campaign and to encourage them to drink water. A snapchat filter will be added to the building of the council to encourage employees to take part in the campaign under the hashtag #Water_Campaign_For_Healthy_Kidney
Mariam Khalfan Bin Dakheen, director of the Friends of Kidney Patients Association, said: “This annual campaign comes as part of the association’s efforts to raise awareness on the importance of the kidney, and ways of preserving its health, and to highlight the role of water in maintaining kidney health, especially for school students, the elderly and working women.”
Dakheen stressed that kidney diseases are largely linked to the lack of drinking water and fluids, and that drinking lots of water is one of the most effective means of reducing risk of kidney diseases. She added that the current edition of the campaign aims to reach out to students and the elderly, in addition to various members of the community through social networking sites.
In order to spread the message of the campaign to the public, the Friends of Kidneys Patients Association will publish a number of video clips that feature specialists speaking on the topic of kidney health, which will be posted on Twitter and Instagram from October 1 to 3.
Since its establishment in 2006, the Friends of Kidney Patients Association has been actively working to spread awareness among community members in the UAE on kidney diseases, and providing medical treatment and appropriate health care to the patients, as well as supporting hospitals and health centres by providing them with diagnostic equipment and treatment.
It is one of the health support Associations at the Supreme Council for Family Affairs in Sharjah.
