'Voluntourism' and Helping Babies Breathe?: Capacity Building in Rwanda

摘要

Sustainability is considered by many to be the "Holy Grail" of international medical missions; however capacity building is fast becoming the new goal of these projects as more are focusing on the development and strengthening of human and institutional resources. After a chance meeting in Rwanda in 2008, a nurse from the University of Kansas Hospital and the Executive Director of Global Engagement Institute teamed up to bring neonatal projects to the country of Rwanda in east central Africa. Three years later, the discovery of a program called Helping Babies Breathe? (HBB), led them on a path to capacity building by working with the Rwandan Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Kigali Health Institute (KHI) to incorporate the HBB program into curriculum in the nursing and midwifery programs at KHI. An increasing number of health care professionals have become involved in international missions for the purpose of volunteering their time, expertise, and skills to low resourced countries. Because they often participate in these missions at their own expense, such endeavors have been dubbed "altourism" or "Voluntourism".1 In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower turned a similar vision into People to People International (PTPI) for the purpose of connecting people from different cultures to create multinational experiences promoting cross cultural learning, development of global leadership skills, and formation of international connections of people committed to making a difference in their world.2 Besides student programs and immersion tourist programs, PTPI also developed programs which bring professionals from similar fields in different countries together for the purpose of sharing their knowledge and expertise. It was a trip similar to these which brought a group of NICU nurses to Rwanda for the purpose of capacity building through voluntourism, collaboration and the HBB program. This article describes the experience of voluntourism in Rwanda resulting in capacity building in that country.