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Since 2003, Bangladesh Health Project volunteers have been working In Bangladesh. For the first two decades, the work in Bangladesh was aided by volunteers from Mid-Main Community Health Centre in Vancouver. Mid-Main founder, Prof. John Richards and Director Alex Berland were invited to help Dhaka’s IUBAT- International University of Business Agriculture and Technology to launch a nursing college (BSc Nursing).

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This was led in-country by Dr. Karen Lund of Vancouver who was recognized by the Government of Canada for over a decade of service as Coordinator of the IUBAT College of Nursing. Visiting Bangladesh each year but mostly supporting from Canada, Alex Berland recruited nearly a hundred volunteers who served as visiting faculty at IUBAT or supported the project from home. The IUBAT College of Nursing is now fully staffed with highly capable local faculty.

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Following this success, we converted the BScN courses developed for IUBAT into Open Education Resources to support novice nurse educators globally. Those resources are now available from another volunteer-driven organization, Nurses International, led by CEO Miriam Chickering and based in Minneapolis USA. The OER have been downloaded by users in over 100 countries.

Working with Bangladeshi colleague, Dr. Nazmul Huda, our latest higher education initiative is a Masters in Public Health program at IUBAT, which will provide a career pathway, especially for nurses. At the same time John Richards has led several research projects and co-authored a reference text concerning evaluation and improvement of education in Bangladesh and elsewhere in South Asia.

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Since 2008, we have worked with Sajida Foundation, a major Bangladesh NGO led by Executive Director Zahida Kabir. In Sajida’s hospitals, BHP volunteers have assisted with projects such as nurse training, infection control and quality improvement. In Sajida’s community programs, BHP volunteers have helped improve home care for elderly and disabled people. Most recently we have been assisting Sajida to establish an innovative psychiatric hospital by training multi-disciplinary team members.  

In 2009, we began working with an NGO based in a poor rural district, Oasis for Posterity, led by CEO Rabiul Islam.  Current projects include support for a primary school and a vocational college which now trains civil engineering, masonry and computer science students and in future will train community health workers. OfP has recently opened a primary health clinic. Our latest report is available below.

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We have benefited from the volunteer support of so many kind, capable people over the years. Hundreds of individuals have contributed teaching materials, clinic supplies and money; many volunteers visited IUBAT to teach, while others worked from home to develop course materials, support the visiting faculty or improve our communications. Our blog posts include pictures and stories from many of these volunteers. Contact us to learn more and get involved yourself.