Nursing Students Without Borders: NSWB. Although this name may not ring a bell with many students at the University, this relatively small group of about 15 to 20 active student members has been making large changes in remote areas half a world away from the safe environment surrounding the University community since 1999.
The group was originally established here at the University by two Nursing students and has now expanded to chapters at Purdue, Virginia Commonwealth University and other universities. According to the group's mission statement posted on its Web site, "Nursing Students Without Borders empowers under-served communities through health education, the creation of networks to access health care resources and the distribution of material donations -- while expanding the perspective of the nursing student."
But how this expansive mission statement gets translated into real initiatives carried out by students is a somewhat more complicated matter. Vice President of Development Mandy Cocke stressed the importance of having a contact person with whom the organization can work in order to establish a program of aid.
"Before we go to any place to help out, we need to have a contact person who knows the indigenous people there and can help us with initiatives, and that's often a problem with starting initiatives," Cocke said.
Currently the organization is working on two separate initiatives -- one in San Sebastián, El Salvador and one in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The El Salvador initiative has been going on since 1999, and currently the group is working with the Red Cross to help establish sustainable healthcare within this area through means such as education on diabetes, first aid training and the delivery of medical supplies.
NSWB President Connor Ginley, a fourth-year Nursing student, explained that NSWB students work collaboratively with the Red Cross in El Salvador to create sustainable health care and try to facilitate the Red Cross serving the community.
Students have paired with companies such as Building Goodness and Community Housing Foundation in their endeavors to build a clinic in this area for the past two years and as part of an effort to establish in-country representatives for their initiatives once the NSWB students return to the University.
"We are trying to build a self-sustaining clinic over there for immunizations and check-ups because they just don't have those kinds of resources," Vice President of Publicity Amy Lackey said.
NSWB has also focused efforts in South Africa after a visit from professors of the University of Venda in the Limpopo province to the University Nursing School last spring led to a partnership between the two organizations. NSWB decided to take six students on a 10-day trip to the province to evaluate the situation and the community's needs.
"The nursing students at the University of Venda met us and planned out the whole week ... we learned that it's an impoverished area ... only the wealthiest students go to [the University of Venda] but even they can't afford text books," Cocke said. "We did a textbook drive before our arrival, but we didn't know the magnitude of the problem until arrival."
The NSWB students, with the help of the nursing students at the University of Venda, also established teaching projects on malaria, HIV/AIDS, and self esteem and empowerment.
"In each area you visit you identify potential problems, and then you do teaching projects that target remedies or solutions to the problems," Cocke said.
Cocke also described the different type of education the nursing students in Limpopo received.
"The nursing students there are involved in the community from day one," she said. "They are assigned a village to work with during a four-year program."
This program has the local nursing students assessing the village they have been assigned, presenting these assessments and then creating programs to help solve problems of the community.
"We were so excited because we saw a continual outreach to NSWB," Cocke said. "They're here year-round, can work with these people on a daily basis and have an impact on their lives. For us to help the community we need to help the nursing students."
Cocke said this contact with the nursing students of the University of Venda is the type that allows NSWB to work successfully and establish a sustainable infrastructure for healthcare -- an important goal of the organization.
However, these trips do not solely benefit the underprivileged indigenous population. They also have a serious impact upon the students traveling to these areas. Part of NSWB's mission statement involves "expanding the perspective of the nursing student" and by traveling to these remote areas, NSWB students are introduced to an environment unlike any they had ever experienced before.
Cocke described the shocking conditions she encountered in Africa.
"The villages were very different -- very rural, limited access to health care, water and food," she said. "And the dichotomy to these students who were so similar to us was unreal."
Cocke also became more aware of the differences between both the healthcare education and the healthcare system of this region of the world.
"We got to see how more holistic health care is there," she said. "Holistic as in the whole person -- looking at things you can do to care for and comfort a patient as opposed to injecting them with a drug or monitoring them."
These programs and initiatives, however, do not come without a significant price tag. The initiatives are very expensive, especially with NSWB covering all students traveling expenses except for meals, NSWB members said. Yet, the program has found some success with both private and corporate donations.
"We've actually been really fortunate because it is a unique organization, and we have had a couple of different donors," Ginley said.
These donors include University President John T. Casteen, III as well as donations from a private couple in England, Crutchfield, the Z Society and more. Lately, the organization has been focused on writing grant applications to larger foundations to raise money for the clinic in San Sebastián.
The group has also been working hard to organize several fundraising events to continue the programs in South Africa and El Salvador. NSWB recently hosted a dinner for the South African initiative at Shebeen in downtown Charlottesville where they raised close to $700 and gained increased exposure when Channel 29 News covered the event.
Even with increasing donations and planned initiatives, Cocke said she is amazed that more students have not become part of this powerful organization.
"That's been my biggest surprise with NSWB," she said. "Here's this great organization ... going to other countries, empowering other people, and it's still hard to get people involved."
Ginley shared the same concern.
"It's a tough sell because we don't really have regular meetings," he said.
Ginley, Cocke and Lackey emphasized that the group is open to all students, not just those in the Nursing School.
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