One Walk Aberdeen, will take place on Saturday, October 5th at Duthie Park with all funds going directly to support groundbreaking research to accelerate life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat type 1 diabetes and its complications.

Currently, there are 339,000 people living with type 1 diabetes in Scotland and in the past three years over 3300 people have received a diagnosis.

One of those is Aberdeen-born and bred, Ty McAlley who has lived with type 1 diabetes for nearly 13 years since he was diagnosed aged just 3. When Ty was diagnosed with the life-threatening, auto-immune disease his parents, Mechelle and Martin felt helpless as they couldn’t shield him from the daily pain of insulin injections and multiple finger pricks to manage blood glucose levels. That was until Ty began closed-loop pump therapy in 2024 – a life-changing treatment only available thanks to research funded and undertaken by JDRF.

Ty said: “Type 1 diabetes is still a horrible condition to deal with but having hybrid closed loop makes it much more bearable. Something I’ll always be so grateful to JDRF for.”

The One Walk event is one of the ways JDRF is continuing to invest in funding for treatments for type 1 diabetes and research so that one day a cure can be found.

The One Walk in Aberdeen will set off from the JJR Memorial statue in Duthie Park. The JJR MacLeod Memorial Society unveiled the bronze sculpture last year to commemorate Professor John Jack MacLeod who was educated in Aberdeen and co-discovered insulin in 1922, a discovery that has saved millions of lives.

Caroline Miller, head of Scotland at JDRF, said, “One Walk is our hugely successful annual sponsored walk. We are excited to be bringing One Walk back to Aberdeen and hope that as many people in the type 1 community as possible will join us. It’s been great to see the city giving recognition recently to JJR MacLeod with the installation of the memorial bench in Duthie Park.

“With the walk starting at the monument, we hope that people will come and learn a bit more about MacLeod whilst they are there. We owe so much to MacLeod and his colleagues, and JDRF aims to raise money to bring even more breakthroughs to help people living with type 1. Type 1 diabetes is a relentless condition, and it can be really tough on people living with it every day. One Walk is fantastic for bringing the community together and supporting each other.”

On the day there will be a 2k and 5K walk plus a whole host of fun activities for all the family to enjoy.

The Scottish Housing News Charity Spotlight feature highlights the vital work of charities across Scotland each Friday. To include your local charity, whether housing-related or not, send your story and images to us at newsdesk@scottishnews.com.