Summary

Program goals

DREAM Trust is a charitable institution working towards making the life of diabetic children, especially girls, more bearable and more meaningful. The goals of the program are to ensure the survival and reducing morbidity of diabetic children through regular insulin supply. The program also aims to reduce long-term complications and provide rehabilitation for low socioeconomic status diabetic children.

Key program components

Each patient receives highly purified mostly human insulin whose supply and frequency depends on the distance they have to travel (i.e. monthly for patients of Nagpur district, every 2 - 3 months for those living farther away). The goals of the Trust are the following:

• Reducing the morbidity and ensuring the survival of diabetic children
• Reducing the long-term chronic complications of diabetes
• Rehabilitation, including vocational training
• Creating better awareness and education of children and their parents through social events such as picnics.

Many people in India are not medically insured and have to buy insulin injections, syringes and other accessories required for treatment. Poor families find it difficult to commit a quarter of their monthly income for the medicine and health care required by a diabetic child. This is why they try to find short cuts which they wrongly believe will make treatment less expensive.

Debilitating, social, cultural and economic factors in India continue to discriminate against women and girls, leading to a lack of necessary medical attention frequently resulting in death. As a result the Trust gives priority to these populations. As of 2007, DREAM Trust had served 395 children.