Page 28 - BusinessWest October 17, 2022

Education
Spearheading the Haiti Nursing Continuing Education Program are Elms College officials, from left, Anne Mistivar, project faculty coordinator and cultural consultant; President Harry Dumay; Maryann Matrow, director of School of Nursing Operations; and Deanna Nunes, assistant clinical professor and associate dean of the School of Nursing.
Learning Experiences
Haiti Nursing Program Lets Students, Elms College Extend Their Reach
HBy George O’Brien
arry Dumay says the initial talks began more than four years ago.
They involved nurse educa- tors in Haiti and leaders at Elms College, including Dumay, who is from Haiti,
and they centered around how Elms, which has a strong Nursing program, might be able to partner with those in Haiti to continue the education of nurses in a broad effort to improve health outcomes in that country through nurse-faculty development.
Through a $750,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a partnership between Elms and the Episcopal University of Haiti School of Nursing (EUH) was created that brings together nurse faculty from across Haiti and uses a ‘train-the-trainer’ approach to instruct the faculty with leading-edge nursing skills.
To date, more than 47 nurses in two cohorts from all provinces of Haiti have gone through the program — there was an elabo- rate graduation ceremony in May for both groups — and a third cohort has begun, with a fourth and perhaps more planned, thanks to a second grant from the Kellogg Founda- tion for $1.1 million.
That is the short, as in very short, version of a truly compelling story.
The longer version involves how all this has been accomplished during a time of global pandemic and an earthquake, a severe hurricane, and extreme political upheaval and general unrest in Haiti, including the assassination of the country’s president, Jove- nel Moise, more than a year ago.
In short, very little about this initiative has been easy, but those involved — here and in Haiti — have persevered because the stakes are high and need to train nurse faculty is great, said Dumay.
Elaborating, he noted that the original
“
helpful because in Haiti they don’t have this type of training for nurses. They have nurses that are in different specialties and
in different roles, and they find themselves teaching, but they’ve never been taught how to teach, so this program is very important because they are learning how to
”
The Elms program was very
be an instructor.
28 OCTOBER 17, 2022 EDUCATION BusinessWest