VCU news

By Jessica Ferreira
VCU Communications and Public Relations

Nursing students at Virginia Commonwealth University are banding together to bring their medical knowledge and services to people in need through the Nursing Students Without Borders program.

The group’s mission is to promote health empowerment through education, build networks to access health care resources and distribute material donations to developing world communities, while expanding the perspective of the nursing students.

VCU School of Nursing students say they participate with the group to alleviate suffering due to lack of education and inadequate access to resources in underserved communities.

Jennifer Peyton, VCU nursing student and current president of Nursing Students Without Borders, has significantly increased the group’s activities with a focus on the local community.

“We co-sponsor Virginia Blood Services blood drives, we have a team for Relay for Life at VCU, and we collect food for the Chesterfield Colonial Heights Alliance for Social Ministry,” said Peyton. “A few of us are also attending the Global Health Innovation Conference at Yale this month.”

This past January, eight members of the VCU chapter traveled to San Ignacio, Belize, to perform health screenings and to give medical support. The students provided services for several hundred children at two schools in three days. They also spent time at the Good Shepard Clinic for an additional two days, offering similar aid to families in the region.

The group will be traveling to Haiti this summer to offer their services and supplies to people in need of care.

“We will be working with a community in the Cite Soleil-Blanchard area of Haiti, and we will provide basic health care within the local clinic, with an emphasis on educating citizens about good hygiene and trying to boost the basic health status of children,” said Peyton.

NSWB student organizations in universities nationwide typically work independently of each other with little interaction between groups. Peyton says she hopes to see more collaboration in the future, with all groups sharing experiences and resources to benefit the most people.

“I would love to see other groups partnered together for the greater good of humanity and the world at large,” she said.

The initial NSWB chapter was founded in 1999 at the University of Virginia.

For more information about Nursing Students Without Borders of VCU, visit them on Facebook.