School of Nursing trip to Peru provides service learning experience

For the first time in the 99-year history of the School of Nursing at Beebe Healthcare, students and faculty embarked on an international service-learning trip.

In August 2019, a MEDLIFE chapter was started at the Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing. MEDLIFE stands for Medicine Education and Development for Low-Income Families Everywhere. The chapter formation allowed the school to start planning and fundraising for service-learning trips. For the inaugural trip, students chose Lima, Peru.

MEDLIFE provides aid in many different countries, but the largest chapter is in Lima. A group of 21 students and two faculty members from Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing embarked Jan. 18 on a 24-hour journey to reach Peru. 

In Lima, they participated in activities which served communities in and around the city by way of mobile clinics, which provide free, high-quality healthcare directly to communities without access to basic health services. MEDLIFE staff, local healthcare practitioners, and School of Nursing volunteers helped keep the stations running smoothly while providing care to numerous community members. By partnering with local practitioners, the clinics are able to meet the current community needs, and the same providers stay in the community after the volunteers complete their trip.

Nursing student Mariah Little said, “It was such a humbling experience to assist individuals in providing healthcare to people who may have never seen a doctor at the age of 40. These individuals allowed us to touch their lives, but little did they know they impacted mine even more as a human being and as a future nurse.”

The MEDLIFE experience also included an educational component. Students and faculty learned some Spanish and helped teach the children how to properly brush their teeth. There were also education sessions for adults which focused on common health problems seen in the community, as well as identification and treatment of those illnesses.

The MEDLIFE program also participates in community development with a focus on building infrastructure to aid in access to basic resources. Many people live without electricity, water, bathrooms, safe exits or roads, and more. The MEDLIFE program requires a 50/50 working relationship with community members in order to bring much-needed resources to the area.

While they were there, the School of Nursing group built a 45-meter staircase. Students and faculty worked side by side with community members all day on this large project. Many community members who labored along with the volunteers had worked at their regular jobs and then continued on another staircase that evening after students left for the day.

Student Matty Fagan said, “We built a staircase within this community with buckets and buckets of cement. We formed an assembly line and passed buckets for hours. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

Along with the long, hard days, the trip also offered moments when students and faculty could explore the beautiful coastal town of Mira Flores. As students worked on building the infrastructure of the community, participating in health screenings and educating locals, they also created a shared experience which bonded this group of future nurses more than anyone could have anticipated.

Student Quincey Book said, “Going to Peru has had such a significant impact on my future as a nurse. To be able to see people experiencing poverty and going without basic necessities is so eye-opening. I feel an entirely new level of compassion and empathy for others.”

At the end of the trip, the group had an incredible experience where they got to return to the completed staircase they helped build earlier in the week. There was an inaugural party for the staircase. This was a huge community-wide celebration complete with singing, dancing and delicious food.

Student Kerry Carr said, “As we had slung hundreds of buckets of concrete just days prior to build the staircase, to be welcomed by members of the community with a standing ovation right before the inauguration was inspiring. Children who didn’t even know us grabbed our hands to dance; families wanted to take pictures with us – despite the obstacles this community faced, they continued to celebrate.”

Student Florangel Sandoval said, “For me, going to Lima and being able to contribute with something so little made me realize how blessed I am now to be able to give, when years before I was in the same situation, struggling, hoping and receiving.”  Florangel is fluent in Spanish and was able to connect with community members on a whole different level.

“As much as these communities thanked us for coming, they did not realize how much they really did for us,” said student Alexis Leskovac.

As the student leader for the MEDLIFE Service-Learning trip, Leskovac said she was humbled by the amount of community support: “I never imagined we would have 23 members, including students and faculty, going on this trip. In less than two months, our school of nursing came together and raised nearly $8,000 through various fundraisers and donations. We are so fortunate to have such overwhelming support from our local community.”

“We at the Margaret H. Rollins School of Nursing would like to thank all of our donors who made this trip possible, and we hope this will be the first of many service-learning trips,” said Karen Pickard, program administrator.