Liz Clibourne
Regions of interest: Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America
Skills: work with children, women's empowerment, teaching, health
Skills
I am an RN with 20 years of experience, and although I am excruciatingly burned out with nursing in America, I love nursing in Africa. Twice I have lived in orphanages, for 7 months in Ghana, and 9 months in Tanzania. During my time there, the kids were well and healthy, worm free and gaining weight. In the village, word gets around that there is a nurse nearby, and I also saw sick villagers. We also had a women's group, which met every thursday to discuss health issues. This is the kind of nursing I like.
In Tanzania, the village preschool was located at the center, and although the kids knew the ABC song, they didn't know the letters out of order. Numbers as well. So we reorganized the preschool, painted the entire curriculum on the walls, and began teaching in an interactive fashion. The results were fabulous, our preschoolers were doing better than the first graders in the primary school.
There are other things that I can do, but my focus is health and education, in any form, for everyone.