Started by our founder and CEO Divaa Uthkarsha in 2021 at the age of 12, Project Surya aims to make good health and well being accessible affordable and available to everyone. Divaa’s younger brother Surya was diagnosed with T1 diabetes and after observing first hand how challenging the process could be from accepting the shocking diagnosis to understanding that it is a lifelong condition to dealing with financial strain on the family, Divaa also witnessed families in rural areas facing societal taboos,  misconceptions, lack of awareness and hurtful comments while managing the condition, receiving a T1 diabetes diagnosis is difficult.

 

This deeply impacted Divaa and she began thinking about underprivileged children living with the same condition. After seeing the level of care resources and family support required to manage T1 diabetes she questioned what this journey must look like for children from low income and uneducated families. She recognised how unfair this reality is when families are forced to spend more than 70% of their income on out of pocket diabetes care.

 

Driven by this realisation Divaa made a decision to take action. She committed to doing everything she could to ensure that every child with T1 diabetes has the opportunity to dream big just like any other child. Project Surya was founded in Bangalore, India in the name of her younger brother. Surya in Kannada means the Sun and reflects the mission to brighten as many lives as possible. Today Project Surya is one of the most rapidly growing youth-led organisations in the T1D space in India and is led by young people across 10 cities in 6 countries.