Volunteer spotlight – October 2024 – Deepthi Musunuru

Deepthi has always had a great aspiration to volunteer, having seen people volunteering since she was young. She is a former international student from India but found it challenging to find volunteering opportunities at home. Deepthi embarked on her volunteering journey thanks to her Master’s Degree studies at Sheffield Hallam University, as volunteering was a mandatory element of her course. She’s already met some incredible people doing amazing things.

As a nutritionist and health coach, she wanted to volunteer to apply her studies and work towards a career in diabetes management. Volunteering has been a turning point in her journey, and she’s supported several events already this year.

“I’m grateful for Diabetes UK and for these opportunities. I’m an international student so if it wasn’t for Diabetes UK, I wouldn’t have so many opportunities to meet people and to learn about diabetes.”

Deepthi believes that “alone we can do little, but together we can do much more”, and that these consistent small acts of volunteering can have a positive impact on people at a large scale.

For Deepthi, it’s not something she wants to do only for the short term, or even for the long term, but volunteering for her is lifelong.

Deepthi’s role in the community

It’s incredible how much Deepthi has achieved and experienced as a volunteer since beginning her journey with us in January 2024. It started with supporting our charity’s North of England Engaging Communities Officer to deliver an online talk, supporting people who are living with sight loss at an event led by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). She’s since attended events for people working in prisons, supported our fundraiser to raise diabetes awareness at their events, and supported health events in the community.

Deepthi says that from her experience speaking in the community, people start to gain more of an interest in diabetes and want to learn about how to prevent or manage it. She believes it’s more important than ever to help people learn the signs and symptoms of diabetes as over 1 million people are currently living with the condition without knowing.   

While attending events Deepthi has noticed there’s a lot of misinformation and myths about diabetes circulating in the community, the internet, and social media. She says people often struggle to get credible resources to help them live well with diabetes. Deepthi enjoys handing out our information leaflets and booklets, telling people about our local peer support groups and signposting to our website and helpline, and she sees how our information helps people. She also uses her professional background to tell people about the NHS remission programmes.

Connecting with other volunteers

Volunteering with other volunteers and organisations has given Deepthi so much joy and motivation, and she feels lucky to have met so many wonderful people this year. While supporting one of our fundraising events, she met an incredible fundraiser aged over 90 years old who’s enthusiasm has stuck with her, as he was so passionate about supporting people living with diabetes.

Deepthi has also had the opportunity to volunteer with the Leeds Diabetes UK Support Group and the Sheffield Diabetes UK Support Group. Some of the members have volunteered for over 20 years and bring a wealth of knowledge which they share with Deepthi. From hearing talks given by group guest speakers, (for example an Indian expert for type 1 diabetes) Deepthi feels she’s always learning about diabetes on a local and global scale. She’s learnt so much from her co-volunteers, they’ve always welcomed her with open arms and a warm heart. Their enthusiasm has inspired her to volunteer more, and she hopes to meet more volunteers, getting to know their stories and experiences in the future.

Highlights whilst volunteering with us

When asked about her highlights and successes volunteering for us, Deepthi shared about an event where she was able to deliver health messaging on eating well when living with diabetes. This was close to her heart given her background as a nutritionist and health coach. She got good feedback and an overwhelming response from attendees, and she really values the opportunity to deliver accurate information provided by us.

When she’s given talks on diabetes and food, she often finds herself “myth busting” because there’s still so much misinformation out there. One of her event attendees said that they’d found so much value in the information that she provided, that they would take this with them for the rest of their life.

Deepthi has learnt so much through volunteering, and she attributes one of the main reasons for her getting a job as a Diabetes Remission Health Coach to the knowledge she’s gained from being one of our volunteers.

Plans for the future   

Deepthi would love to be a lifelong volunteer, to give back to the community. She’s still learning and gaining knowledge every day. She loves meeting amazing people from diverse cultures and would love for this to continue. Deepthi is keen to volunteer more with women living with or at risk of gestational diabetes, promoting early intervention to reduce the likelihood of complications. She’d also like to do more research on diabetes technology such as continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and artificial intelligence (AI) to see how these can help people to manage their diabetes.

Deepthi would encourage everyone to consider volunteering. She says it doesn’t matter for how many hours, or length of time, everyone should feel the satisfaction of helping others without expecting anything in return. Positively impacting peoples’ lives through volunteering is rewarding, and from a professional point of view volunteering gives invaluable opportunities to get exposure of real-world issues and what’s happening in the world. While studying and reading books is great there’s nothing more valuable than real life experience. She also says that volunteering has made her a more compassionate, empathetic, and well-rounded person.         

Deepthi is grateful to Diabetes UK for her volunteering experiences and says that because she came to the UK as an international student, she wouldn’t have had the same opportunities to meet people and learn about diabetes if it wasn’t for teaming up with us. She can’t believe how much she’s learnt about diabetes in India too through volunteering with us, and she’s improved both professionally and personally as a result. She would love to do more volunteering in the future across local and global diabetes.

The North of England team at Diabetes UK look forward to working with Deepthi further and feel extremely grateful and proud of her time with us. She has been a dream to work with, and we see a great future for her, both through her volunteering and beyond. The world is your oyster Deepthi!

If you have been inspired by Deepthi’s story, check out our volunteering and Communities in Action opportunities.