OREANDA-NEWS. A team of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) volunteers from its operations worldwide is on the ground in Thailand, working with a local hospital and health volunteers as part of Lilly's Connecting Hearts Abroad global employee volunteer program. A second team of volunteers will depart next week to serve in Ghana. Nine more teams of Lilly volunteers will deploy throughout 2016 to serve with local partners in impoverished communities across four continents.

Through Connecting Hearts Abroad, one of Lilly's flagship volunteer programs, employees volunteer for two weeks in low- and middle-income countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, collaborating with local partners to better understand the challenges faced by these communities, including access to quality care. Many of the volunteer teams apply specialized skills in patient education, information technology and other disciplines to help advance the goals of local health partners. 

Growing Network of Partners
Lilly continues to expand its network of Connecting Hearts Abroad partners. In 2016, Connecting Hearts Abroad volunteers will work alongside these leading organizations in these areas:

  • Cross-Cultural Solutions in Thailand, Ghana, Tanzania and Guatemala, on programs that focus on health, education and caregiving;
  • A Fresh Chapter in Peru, a program in which Lilly volunteers are cancer survivors or primary caregivers;
  • AMPATH in Kenya, on a program that focuses on cancer care;
  • The Lilly NCD Partnership, which focuses on improving diabetes outcomes. These partners include:
    • The Institute for Children with Diabetes and the Medical Foundation of Rio Grande do Sul - Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil
    • Public Health Foundation of India, Population Services International and Project HOPE in India
    • Carlos Slim Foundation in Mexico
    • Donald Woods Foundation and Project HOPE in South Africa.

About Connecting Hearts Abroad
Each year, Lilly sends at least 100 employees from its operations worldwide to volunteer in communities that often lack access to basic resources, including quality health care. Through this program, ambassadors have the opportunity to see the world through a different lens—and to share their experiences with colleagues to help Lilly become a better, more globally aware company.

Nearly 1,000 Lilly ambassadors from about 60 countries have devoted more than 64,000 hours of volunteer service through Connecting Hearts Abroad since the program began in 2011.

Multimedia Resources
Learn more about Connecting Hearts Abroad and Lilly's commitment to corporate responsibility through these online resources:

About Eli Lilly and Company
Lilly is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism.