Most people would be upset if they had to be woken in the middle of the night to receive injections, but a courageous Norwich schoolgirl takes such a difficult routine in her stride.

For Lily Wishart, 12, of Plumstead Road, Norwich, suffers from incurable type 1 diabetes, which means she will have to have insulin injections for the rest of her life to enable her to survive and has to have injections before she eats to ensure her body can cope with the carbohydrates from the food.

The condition, which is different to more treatable type 2 diabetes, is caused by the body's autoimmune system destroying the insulin producing beta cells of the pancreas, meaning the body can no longer produce enough of the insulin hormone to regulate glucose and sugar levels in the blood.

However, the brave Hewett School pupil has found ways of coping with the condition and on Thursday she held a sponsored silence, which raised £189 for the charity JDRF, which is funding research for a cure to type 1 diabetes.

She said: 'I decided to raise money for the JDRF because the charity has made quite a big difference to my life and it is Diabetes Awareness Month so I wanted to get it out there that it is quite serious and I wanted to fund a cure.'

The chatty youngster said staying quiet was quite difficult on the day, but she had a white board to communicate.

She added: 'I like singing with my friends, so it was quite painful that I was not able to do that.'

She said most of the money had come from her school friends, though she has also raised £300 when she gave a powerpoint presentation at her old school, Lionwood Junior School, to raise awareness of type 1 diabetes.

Her condition means that she has to check how much fat and carbohydrates are in her food, which dictates how many units of insulin she needs to inject.

She lives with her mother Zoe Wishart, 38, a childminder, father Christopher Morris, 37, who works for Anglian Windows and brother Callum, 13.

Mrs Wishart said her daughter was diagnosed with the condition in June 2012 after she noticed she had an unquenchable thirst, which is a symptom of diabetes.

She paid tribute to her daughter and also praised her school, which has made accommodations for her condition, including allowing her to take her injections in private and enabling her to go away on school trips by helping her to take her injections during the night.