During his recent visit to Thomazeau, Haiti, College of Pharmacy Dean Phil Johnston visited villages with LiveBeyond workers and a Belmont delegation to aid and dispense medications to a woman in postpartum, a father with high blood pressure, a small boy with worms and a man with a hip injury. The most powerful experience of them all was when a man who received medical attention sang a Christian hymn in Creole as his Voodoo-practicing neighbors gathered around and listened.
“It was like watching a Bible story about caring for the least of these,” Johnston said.
He, along with College of Health Sciences & Nursing Dean Cathy Taylor and Nursing Assistant Professor Robin Cobb, visited LiveBeyond’s base in Haiti last week to identify areas of student mission participation and to flush out unique partnerships between the University and the nonprofit organization that would allow Belmont students to provide medical and educational resources as well as business development to the ailing Caribbean country. Founded by retired trauma surgeon David Vanderpool, LiveBeyond moved its headquarters in May into Belmont’s Facilities Management Services building at the corner of 15th and Delmar avenues. The organization’s 64-acre Haitian base encompasses medical care, nutrition, maternal health, orphan care, education development, community development and infrastructure, agriculture and demonstration farms, clean water projects and community outreach visits to those with special needs and disabilities in a region 25 miles northeast of Port Au Prince, Haiti.
“We certainly were able to get a great flavor for the compound and the vision for what is there now and the vision for what is planned,” said Taylor, who will co-host a convocation-credit forum to share more about the team’s experiences at 10 a.m. Wednesday in McWhorter Hall room 102.
“Our goal is to have a regular loop of students and faculty who are not only performing service mission work but really practicing and working with patients to deliver care and to train folks who live there,” Taylor said. “There are many lessons to be learned from this experience. Cultural contributors to health care and health beliefs are remarkably different and that would be a powerful experience for our students.”
The deans said they foresee credit-bearing courses for Belmont students in Haiti. A nursing elective is already planned for this Maymester. A pharmacy elective on cultural enrichment and development where students learn culture, policies and medical language before working in-house at hospitals abroad alongside doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists and business managers to gain interprofessional experience could begin as early as this fall.
“This is about understanding your place in the world is to serve God and serve others. To go anywhere and understand how to incorporate it in your profession as a pharmacist who sees the world,” Johnston said.
LiveBeyond’s mission parallels the University’s Christian roots and provides care in a country where the indigent are outcast “so that others can Live Beyond disease, hunger, poverty and despair.”
Taylor and Robin smile with LiveBeyond’s maternal health clinic workers.
A second Belmont delegation will make the same trip to Thomazeau, Haiti on Feb. 20 with Associate Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies & Global Education Mimi Bernard, School of Religion Dean Darrell Gwaltney, College of Arts & Sciences Dean Bryce Sullivan, Associate Dean of Students Becky Spurlock and Ministry Adviser and Liberal Studies Program Adjunct Instructor Martha Minardi.
“There are more than 15,000 non-governmental organizations in Haiti, but most look at a single aspect rather than finding a way to develop sustainable programs that involve Haitians directly in finding solutions. Belmont and LiveBeyond believe that our partnership will allow Belmont students and the Nashville community to help develop a sustainable future for Haiti. Our students come to Belmont to find ways to engage and transform our world. Partnerships like the one between Belmont and LiveBeyond allow that to happen by bringing the reality of our world to campus and allowing them to find a way to make a difference for those with the greatest need,” said Provost Thomas Burns.