Filmmaker, actor and humanitarian, Diego Luna is partnering with the Surgeons of Hope Foundation to raise awareness of the growing need for children and babies to have access to life-saving heart surgeries, regardless of where they call home. Diego Luna is most notorious for his work in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Flatliners, and Narcos (a popular Netflix produced show). He is the organization’s first Heart Ambassador, a role in which he will travel to Latin America on a service mission to witness the Surgeons of Hope team demonstrate their impact firsthand. Click HERE to watch Diego Luna’s message to our supporters. We hope that with the help of the Mexico City native this global health issue will have the exposure it so rightfully needs.
Worldwide, over one million children are born with congenital heart disease every year. Millions more are affected by rheumatic heart disease. While most heart defects can be corrected or improved, children in developing countries are routinely denied life-saving cardiac surgery simply because they live in a region without access to adequate and affordable pediatric care.
“Both Diego and our organization believe that no child should die of a broken heart,” said Surgeons of Hope’s Executive Director Charles-Edouard Catherine. “It is an unconscionable loss that a child dies anywhere in the world from a heart defect due to lack of resources or proper care, and he’s helping us to further achieve this vision over the next year thanks to his commitment and leadership.”
Luna will travel with a team on an upcoming mission with the intentions of strengthening our cause and furthering our objective. This past year, Surgeons of Hope has helped save the lives of 486 children and performed over 18,000 screenings. At Surgeons of Hope, we believe that what matters isn’t what we bring, it’s what we leave behind; by providing training to local doctors, surgeons and nurses we facilitate the progressive growth to conquer this issue.
“I am inspired by the incredible work done by the doctors and volunteers who work with the Foundation on a daily basis” said Luna. “I was born in Mexico City and I know how important this is for Latin America. I’m honored and excited to announce that I am becoming a Heart Ambassador for Surgeons of Hope. I am looking forward to joining their next mission to Costa Rica in September, there are many families and patients who need our help!”
Click here to learn more about this amazing partnership.
About the Surgeons of Hope Foundation The Surgeons of Hope Foundation is a New York-based nonprofit established in 2001. The organization aims to ensure every infant and child with a damaged heart has equal opportunity to receive life-saving surgery. Surgeons of Hope provides urgently needed treatment, trains medical teams, and builds health centers in under-resourced communities around the world. https://surgeonsofhope.org/
