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Mumbai is often called the City of Dreams. At night, its lights reflect off the Arabian Sea creating a sparkling cityscape. Home to Bollywood, Mumbai’s vibrant cultural scene makes it the jewel in India’s crown. A city that never fails to dazzle and inspire.

But alongside Mumbai’s streets of gold, extreme wealth and poverty live side by side. In fact, half the city’s population live in slum areas. These adjoin some of Mumbai’s wealthiest neighbourhoods. The sought-after roads that are home to world-class cricketers and Bollywood stars. Just next door are slums like the notorious Trombay slum, in which the Karuna ambulance tours.

The headlights of the ambulance winding its way through the slum is a welcome sight for residents. Every fortnight, like clockwork, Mumbai slum-dwellers greet the visiting medics. If you’re disabled by leprosy, getting medical treatment is hard. Poverty and disability mean travel and paying for care is unreachable.

Karuna patients are so thankful for the special team who care for them in the heart of their communities. Their wounds and ulcers are dressed literally on their doorsteps. They are given the essential medicines they so desperately need.

But it’s not just medical care that is so important to each patient. It’s the hand of friendship, reaching out. An acceptance that people affected by leprosy so rarely receive.

In 2024, the Karuna team provided 4,063 vital treatments. They also extended their work to cover the rural area of Thane outside Mumbai. During the year they found and cured 165 new cases of leprosy in Thane. Arin, 11, and his eight-year-old brother Shiven, are two of these people.

The boys’ mother, Manisha, was diagnosed with leprosy two years ago. A community health worker, trained by The Leprosy Mission, spotted the early signs on her body. She was immediately referred for treatment and given the cure.

Manisha had hoped that this would be the first and final brush with leprosy for her precious family. Her heart sank when she saw a discoloured patch of skin on Arin’s young body. She alerted the community health worker who arranged for the Karuna team to visit.

Arin was found to have leprosy, as was his brother Shiven. Thanks to your generosity, the Karuna medics cured the two young brothers. The cruel disease was halted and will now not taint the rest of their lives. The team will continue to do regular checks on the rest of the family.

Leprosy is being cured every day in communities in and around Mumbai because of you. The hopes and dreams of children like Arin and Shiven are being restored. It is thanks to you that their light will one day be able to shine brightly in the big city.