Bangladesh Health Project Publishes Article in Leading U.S. Journal

In the August edition of the American Journal of Nursing, the ‘Correspondence from Abroad’ feature highlights the experiences of the Bangladesh Health Project team in their efforts to launch a nursing school and to raise the standard of education and training for new nurses.

The article discusses some of the challenges in teaching in Bangladesh, including, but not limited to, the societal stigmas attached to the nursing role, efforts to preserve academic honesty in education, and fostering leadership, critical thinking and leadership skills in the students.  Despite the difficulties, there are remarkable attributes in these Bangladeshi nursing students that contribute to their education, and ultimately, nursing skills.

The authors state, “Our students continue to achieve personal empowerment through mastery of concepts and skills and against enormous odds. Strong bonds with peers and faculty help them to persevere. On the IUBAT campus we’ve seen negative attitudes replaced by respect for the intense study required to earn the BSN degree and to inspire trust in nurses as caregivers.”

For the full article please visit the direct link from the website for the American Journal of Nursing.  Please note that a subscription is required to access the full article.

IUBAT Research Finds Link Between Education and Nutrition

In the summer of 2013, IUBAT’s Centre of Policy Research (CPR) published a commentary entitled, “Education Success and Nutrition: Is there a link?” studying the connection between the nutritional status of children and their attendance and success in school.

The authors, Professor John Richards, one of the founding members of the Bangladesh Health Project, Afifa Shahrin, an SFU Masters of Public Policy graduate and former instructor at BRAC University in Dhaka, and their collaborators collected over 200 survey responses from families in Bangladesh.  The results support other international research that also shows evidence of a link between nutrition and probability of education completion and related success.

The launch of this IUBAT CPR commentary garnered some media attention. Above, Dr. John Richards is seen lecturing alongside IUBAT Vice Chancellor Alimullah Miyan.

For more information about IUBAT’s Centre of Policy Research or the study, visit the Centre of Policy Research’s website.

Bangladesh Health Project Featured in Journal of International Nursing

The Journal of International Nursing (JOIN) is a publication written by Nurses for Nurses International, an organization that aspires to join nurses’ voices from around the globe in an effort to share tools and technology amongst the international community of nurses and midwives.

In the March/April 2013 edition of JOIN, the Bangladesh Health Project (BHP) was prominently featured in an interview with Alex Berland, one of the founding members of the Project and current Advisor on Health Sciences at IUBAT in the Nursing program.

Alex discusses the origins and history of BHP, the operations, the struggles and the future of BHP in Bangladesh and at IUBAT. He says, “It is true that there are immense environmental, social and especially educational challenges for nursing in Bangladesh – outsiders need to understand and respect these challenges. However, there is also enormous energy amongst the young nursing students that I meet there. They have a passion for learning and improvement, a terrific ambition to raise health care standards, to do something different.”