Lilly Connecting Hearts Abroad Strengthens Women Leaders
Eli Lilly and Company’s Connecting Hearts Abroad (CHA) program worked with AMPATH to support a Women in Leadership mentorship program to strengthen women's leadership capacities and capabilities for impactful change in their respective organizations and global health in general.
The pilot program included mentors and mentees from AMPATH, Moi University and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) who engaged with Lilly employees who were selected to volunteer through the CHA program.
Connecting Hearts Abroad is Lilly’s global service program through which more than 2,000 Lilly employees have volunteered alongside organizations and communities with limited resources on health-related projects where they gain first-hand experience with global health challenges and Lilly’s role in addressing them. CHA groups have been working with AMPATH since 2016.
“Our long-time relationship with AMPATH through the CHA program has provided both Lilly employees and AMPATH leaders with opportunities to grow and learn from each other, said Cynthia Cardona, Head of Social Impact at Lilly. “This year’s program was very successful and we look forward to applying the learnings from this pilot project to future efforts.”
"The Women in Leadership Mentorship Program strategically positions women for leadership opportunities by developing their leadership competencies, creating and strengthening the institutional structures for leadership support among women, and developing a women’s community of support,” said Professor Mabel Nangami, PhD, the program coordinator, lecturer at Moi University College of Health Sciences and former dean of the Moi University School of Public Health. "We are happy to have engaged with Lilly to run this pilot program that has context-specific strategies for the women working in global health, and we believe that the pilot has created a platform for women to bring forward their voices."
As a culmination of months of peer-to-peer learning and educational calls, the Lilly CHA team, representatives from Indiana University, and AMPATH mentees joined together and participated in seminars and field activities in Eldoret, Kenya, last fall.
The program has been lauded by participants and stakeholders for being Kenyan-designed and led, and fully embraced and supported by Kenyan leadership at MTRH/Moi University and AMPATH. The different delivery methods were also appreciated, ranging from group programmatic activities to individual leadership coaching. The founder of N8 Solutions led some sessions and provided coaching during and after the gathering in Kenya. The connections and knowledge exchange formed genuine connections between the participants that outlive the project.
"Through the Women in Leadership Program, we have witnessed the power of sharing, learning, experiencing and exploring the invaluable contributions of women in leadership. My deepest thanks go to all those joining forces to make this training interactive, practical, accommodating and fulfilling!” exclaimed Mercy Oduor, a project mentee and the program manager of the AMPATH Multiple Myeloma Program. “We all leave here with a solid call to action to define our paths and crack the ceiling.”
"Being part of this project has changed my perspective. I am more self-aware and have learned much from the facilitators and my peers. I was challenged to be a better leader, and even before the end of the program, I had already enrolled and gone back to school for further studies. This program has been timely and a God-send,” added Dunya Karama, a mentee and administrator for the Indiana Institute of Global Health, Kenya, which provides essential administrative support for AMPATH programs and visitors.
To augment the skills gained from earlier seminars, the Kenyan mentees further attended a one-week course offered by the Kenya School of Government.
Read experiences of the program from Carole McAteer and reflections of leadership from Dr. Florence Jaguga.