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Cigna Foundation Announces Grants to Support Health, Well-Being and Sense of Security For Women and Children Worldwide
[February 27, 2017]

Cigna Foundation Announces Grants to Support Health, Well-Being and Sense of Security For Women and Children Worldwide


The Cigna Foundation today announced $120,000 in grants to the Leaders' Quest Foundation and to Guiding Light Orphans to support five Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) working to help improve the health, well-being and sense of security for women and children worldwide.

"Together, these five organizations are bringing health and hope to communities across the globe and helping to guide and serve some of our world's most vulnerable. The Cigna Foundation is proud to stand with these organizations and help them carry out their vital work," said David Figliuzzi, Cigna Foundation executive director.

Leader's Quest is a global social enterprise that works with leaders from all sectors who want to create a sustainable, more inclusive world. "We are honored to receive this extraordinary grant from the Cigna Foundation in support of our partner organizations who work tirelessly to improve the health and well-being of underserved individuals in their communities," said Lisa Smith, director of development at Leaders' Quest. The following Leader's Quest organizations will receive support from the Cigna Foundation:

The Campaign to Sustain Healthy Childbirths, in Kenya, is led by Jacaranda Health. It's creating East Africa's first sustainable and scalable maternal health service delivery organization for low-income women. The model provides comprehensive maternity care at a network of high-quality, affordable maternity hospitals in peri-urban Nairobi, close to where omen need them. Jacarando Health provides respectful patient-centered obstetric care, safe delivery, family planning, and postnatal care.



The Right to Pee campaign, in India, is a grassroots advocacy initiative led by CORO India to address the lack of clean, safe and free public urinals for women in India. Public toilets for women are often dirty, with broken doors and no running water or lights. Where there are no public toilets, the search for a suitable place comes with the constant threat of sexual harassment or rape. Women who lack access to clean, safe sanitation tend to drink less water and control their bladders for as many as 13 hours a day. This has significant, long-term effects on their reproductive, sexual and overall health.

Mumbai Mobile Creches runs day care centers for children of migrant workers living on construction sites in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane in the state of Maharashtra. These children come with their families from different states of India and live in unsafe surroundings on the dangerous construction sites. The families have limited access to basic amenities like water, sanitation and housing. The program focuses on safety of children on the sites, along with comprehensive support towards education, nutrition and healthcare needs. The program disseminates information, builds community relationships, and communicates with migrant workers living on construction sites. Through community meetings, the teachers aim to raise awareness about important social, personal, or community issues and provide relevant information about best practices and resources to address these issues. Popular topics include the importance of breastfeeding, vaccinations, parenting practices, malnutrition in children, and illnesses like nutritional anaemia and tuberculosis.


Carney's Community in the United Kingdom provides a combination of sports and boxing fitness sessions, combined with long term, consistent and unconditional support to their local community's most disadvantaged groups (with a focus on ex-offenders and people with disabilities). The charity recently set up a social enterprise which trains up participants, and then employs them to deliver personal training and fitness sessions to the public. It also provides emotional well-being counseling, family mediation and mentoring through one-to-one and family therapy sessions.

Additionally, the Cigna Foundation provided a grant to Guiding Light Orphans Guiding Light Orphans (GLO), an Avon, Connecticut-based charity, to open a health clinic in a rural village. The Nyantonzi Community Health Clinic will serve people in rural Uganda who have little access to health care, and provide a base for GLO's Village Health Teams. The teams are made up of specially trained volunteers who reach out to villagers often ostracized by others because they have epilepsy, AIDS and other afflictions.

About the Cigna Foundation

The Cigna Foundation, founded in 1962, is a private foundation funded by contributions from Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) and its subsidiaries. The Cigna Foundation supports organizations sharing its commitment to enhancing the health of individuals and families, and the well-being of their communities, with a special focus on those communities where Cigna employees live and work.


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