Karuna Trust, established in 1986 is affiliated to Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK) located at Biligiri Rangana Hills (B R Hills) in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka that works for tribal empowerment.
The Trust was established to respond to the widespread prevalence of leprosy in Yelandur Taluk of Karnataka and has been singularly successful in addressing this problem. Drop in the prevalence of leprosy from 21.4 per 1000 population to 0.28 per 1000 spanning across 26 years is a testimony for the success of the intervention.
Apart from primary healthcare, education, sustainable livelihoods, and advocacy have been the prime focus areas of Karuna Trust. The interventions of Karuna Trust have been consistently through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model which was initially piloted in collaboration with Government of Karnataka at the Gumballi PHC in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka in 1996 when the PHC was entrusted to Karuna Trust by the government.
Observing the manner in which Karuna Trust successful turned poorly equipped and low performing PHCs into model health centres, offering high quality and affordable primary healthcare, other state governments have approached Karuna Trust to start similar PPP initiatives in their respective States. Karuna Trust today reaches out to over 1.5 million people through direct management of about 70 PHCs in 7 states of India. 2 Mobile Health Units, 1 Eye Hospital and 1 First Referral Unit with over 2,000 dedicated healthcare professionals serving the poor in areas where healthcare has hardly reached. In addition to the respective State Government, the Trust has collaborated with Corporates to manage Health Centres as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative.
With a prime objective of ‘Reaching the Unreached’ to provide healthcare to the underserved and the poor in the remote areas, Karuna Trust continues to serve the community it has been serving with renewed vigor and dedication.