Good causes

As a team, we realise all too well that happiness and health are not always self-evident for many people, which is why we’ve been donating substantial amounts to various charities over the years.

Ramón Mossel Makelaardij has enthusiastically supported many good causes, such as War Child, over recent years.

We like to keep our choice of charities close to home, which is why, in 2016, we committed ourselves to supporting the DON foundation for the coming years.

Stichting Diabetes Onderzoek Nederland (The Dutch Diabetes Research Foundation), or DON for short, was founded in 2006 by Maarten de Gruyter with a clear goal: to cure type 1 diabetes. Because, although type 1 diabetes can be treated, there’s not yet a cure. The complications are far-reaching, from blindness and amputations to heart and kidney failure. Strangely enough, more is invested in making the daily lives of patients more pleasant than in the search for a real solution: complete cure.

“We started the DON foundation because we were looking for something in the world of diabetes that we couldn’t find. I thought there should be a group of people who aren’t concerned with anything but the healing of this disease. Much more money went, and still goes, to care rather than to cure. Which really surprised me. At DON, every penny goes to cure.

The biggest misunderstanding is the perception that type 1 diabetes is something you can live with very easily. A problematic misunderstanding. My mission is therefore to convince people how serious this disease is. It’s difficult, because if people look at me they probably think “it must not be too bad”. But what they don’t see, for example, is that my eyesight is getting worse.”

Maarten de Gruyter

Founder of the DON foundation