The largest international staff volunteering challenge ever organised by leading healthcare company Bupa gets set to launch this month in a remote village in Ecuador.
Some 120 Bupa employees from across the globe will travel to Ecuador between 7 September and 29 November to build essential health facilities for the small agricultural community of Miraflores, where currently a doctor only visits six times a year, due to its remote location.
Truly an international project, the Ecuador Challenge will bring together employees from Bupa's businesses in the UK, including Bupa UK Membership and Bupa International, the world's largest health insurer, with staff from Bupa's businesses in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Denmark, Thailand, the United States and Latin America.
Bupa's volunteers will work alongside the Martha Estrella Foundation - a registered charity based in Ecuador which helps disadvantaged communities find lasting solutions to improve social and economic conditions. Each volunteer will also aim to raise £1,000 before they head to Ecuador, contributing at least £120,000 towards improving the lives of the Miraflores community for the long term.
Pippa Vowles, head of corporate responsibility Bupa Group, said:As a leading healthcare company, Bupa has a long-term commitment to support the communities in territories around the world where we operate and the Ecuador Challenge is the biggest community challenge project that we have ever undertaken. We also believe in providing our staff with the chance to volunteer, learn new skills and work alongside each other. The Ecuador Challenge does all this on an international scale, bringing our employees from around the world together to support a small community, which currently doesn't enjoy many of the things it is easy to take for granted, such as basic health facilities.
With Bupa's help, the people of Miraflores will not only gain a medical and dental facility; but also a childcare facility so children of the village can be safely looked after while their parents work; education facilities such as classrooms, an IT suite and bedrooms for teachers to stay during their visits.
Each volunteer will then spend a week undertaking tasks ranging from helping with the construction of the building and teaching English to delivering healthcare programmes to the local community.
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Bupa's purpose is to help people lead longer, healthier, happier lives. A leading international healthcare group, we offer personal and company health insurance, run care homes for older people and hospitals, and provide workplace health services, health assessments and chronic disease management services, including health coaching, and home healthcare.
With no shareholders, we invest our profits to provide more and better healthcare, and fulfill our purpose. We are committed to making quality, patient-centred, affordable healthcare more accessible in the areas of wellness, chronic disease management and ageing.
Employing more than 52,000 people, Bupa has operations around the world, principally in the UK, Australia, Spain, New Zealand and the USA, as well as Hong Kong, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, India, China and across Latin America.
For more information, visit www.bupa.com.
