October 2014…Eighth grade health reporter Alyse Nichols became the subject of a recent interview for “The Pulse” on WHYY-FM about how she helps her grandmother manage type 2 diabetes.
Based on a first-person story that she wrote for the Hope Partnership for Education Healthy Hope, Alyse and her grandmother discussed on air how they exercise regularly together and cut out soft drinks from their diet. Alyse also reminds her grandmother to limit portion sizes, monitor her blood glucose levels, and take her medicines to control the disease.
“Alyse has really inspired me to not give up,” Debbie Dantzler, Alyse’s grandmother, told WHYY’s Jeanette Woods, who produced the radio story.
Alyse has been a member of the Healthy Hope staff since sixth grade when she wrote the article about her grandmother’s illness. She researched what diabetes is and how patients, like her grandmother, need to lead a healthy lifestyle to help manage the disease. By telling her story about her grandmother, Alyse learned that health reporting can be a powerful tool for the public good.
“I helped others understand what it is like to live with a loved one with an illness,” Alyse wrote shortly after her Healthy Hope article was published. “Writing for the newspaper is important work.”
