Drug Rehabilitation Education And Mentoring (DREAM) is a rights-based mental health initiative of BREADS that empowers lakhs of children and youth to dream beyond drugs.Started in November 2021, DREAM aims to prevent substance use and other addictions among school and college students through awareness creation, counselling and deaddiction services across 10 districts in Kerala: Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam,Ernakulam, Thrissur, Alappuzha, Kozhikode, Kannur, Wayanad and Kasaragod.
DREAM has collaborated closely with Government departments and local communities for more effective intervention.In 2023-24 alone, DREAM reached out through 890 training programmes across ten districts, to 137,698 school and college students, and 65,727 parents, teachers, volunteers and officials. Around 6200 children and youth have been mentored/counselled and 96 young people benefitted from rehabilitation services.
As the first phase of DREAM draws to a close, BREADS is organising an external evaluation of the programme’s implementation to be conducted by the Department of Social Work,Rajagiri College, Ernakulam. As prelude to the evaluation, a state-level review meeting was conducted on 16 January 2025, at Don Bosco Sultan Bathery, Wayanad. It was attended by all the DREAM staff, BREADS representatives, the team of evaluators and the programme funding partner.The review meeting provided a platform to gain clarity on the evaluation process, reflect on the project’s achievements, share best practices, and address challenges encountered during its implementation.
