The walk, which ended at the Madina Number 1 School Park, where health screening carried out aided members of the Church and the community to know their Diabetes status.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Right Reverend Hilliard Dela Dogbey, the Bishop of Western West Africa Episcopal District (Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Liberia and Ghana) of the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church said the GZMI is a Non-Governmental Organ (NGO) initiative of the church in Ghana.

Reverend Dogbey said the day’s event formed part of the cardinal pillars of the organ to promote good governance, healthcare, livelihood and education to advocate, support and empower communities in which they operate.

He said the GZMI focused on tackling diabetes this year partly because November had been assigned as the Diabetes month and mainly because the illness had been increasingly afflicting many people in the country.

He noted that many people do not have education on the illness and that it was affecting them saying, it is crucial that they were exposed to information on the disease to help encourage a diabetes-free life.

“If you look at the figures turning out from the country and if you go to the diabetes clinic, more and more people are getting afflicted by the illness.

Today’s walk is to create the awareness, educate and screen the people of this community on this illness and encourage regular exercise for the people of the community and our members,” he said.

He noted that the exercise targeted to screen 500 community and church members by the close of the day saying, before the walk started, about a 100 people were screened for diabetes.

He noted: “We are offering general healthcare to the people, giving opportunities to people of this community to access their health and get some free medical care.

We have 10 doctors and nurses around who are offering these free services and we have free medications to dispense to the people.

He said Church prayed that the people of the Community and the Church would be sensitised, get access to some free healthcare and to know how to live their lives to get rid of diabetes and to avoid getting afflicted by this illness.

He indicated that the exercise was under the sponsorship of the Church and few friends who had collaborated with the NGO in that regard.

He advised Ghanaians to regularly check their status because “it is not expensive to test for diabetes,” urging people to watch their diets and exercise regularly.

He said:  “It is important that we do our health test as regularly as possible at least annually.”

Dr Emmanuel Kwabla Srofenyoh, the Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, educating the patrons recounted that the older generation never had problem with the issue of diabetes because of the occupation and the distance they had to walk before getting to their farms.

He urged Ghanaians to regularly undertake exercises or take walks that would help burn off some level of cholesterol in the body to facilitate the normalcy of their systems.