Page 29 - BusinessWest October 17, 2022

In May, the first two cohorts of nurse educators in the Haiti Nursing Continuing Education Program attended their graduation ceremony in Haiti. With the graduates in the front row are, from left, Anne Mistivar, project faculty coordinator and cultural consultant for the program; Hilda Alcindor, project co-director from the Episcopalian University School of Nursing in Haiti; Harry Dumay, president of Elms College; Joyce Hampton, associate vice president of Strategic Initiatives and dean of the School of Arts, Sciences and Professional Programs at Elms; and Bapthol Joseph, project co-manager from the Episcopalian University School of Nursing in Haiti.
shifted so that students wouldn’t be travel- ing after dark to take them because of the increased risk to their own safety.
But, as noted, all those involved have pushed through these challenges because of the importance of this training. Indeed, most healthcare in Haiti is provided by nurses, not doctors, so the need to train nurse educators and thereby height-
en the skills of those providing care is paramount.
People like Lousemie Duvernat, a nurse who was part of the second cohort that went through the Elms program. Via Zoom and through an interpreter — Anne Mistivar, project faculty coordinator and cultural consultant for what has come to be known as the Haiti Nursing Continuing Education Program — Duvernat said the program, and, specifically, its ‘train-the- trainer’ approach, has made her a better
nurse, not to mention a better educator.
“The Elms program was very helpful because
in Haiti they don’t have this type of training for nurses,” she explained. “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 be an instructor.
“This, in essence, has helped them to under- stand the students, how to deliver the message, how to present, and how to evaluate the students and make them better educators,” she went on, adding that she would like to see the program continue because they simply don’t have anything like the ‘train-the-trainer’ approach in Haiti.
model for this program called for in-person learning, with educators from Elms flying to Haiti once a month to lead classes.
Those plans were eventually scrapped because of the pandemic and other factors, including safety issues, in favor of a remote- learning model that came with its own set of challenges, especially the securing of needed equipment (tablets, hotspots, and even solar
chargers in case power was lost) and getting them in the hands of the students who would use it.
And these issues were compounded by other challenges, including those aforementioned natural disasters and the general upheaval in the country. Some students had to stay at their work- places to take part in the classes because the WiFi was better there; meanwhile, class times were
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