Launch of Grameen Caledonian Nursing College

• Miscellaneous
• 02nd March 2010
• YC

The Grameen Caledonian Nursing College, the very first Grameen Nurse Institute, was launched in the Mirpur area of Dhaka on March 1, 2010. The 40 students are currently going through orientation and will begin classes on March 7. The College is a new organization following the social business model that prioritizes girls’ health and prosperity as fundamental to ensuring the health of future generations and accelerating economic progress. The College is a prototype for a chain of future nursing colleges located in most district towns of Bangladesh. The head of the Grameen Caledonian Nursing College is Dr. Barbara Parfitt, Dean of the School of Nursing Midwifery and Community Health at Glasgow Caledonian University.

This new vision for the amelioration of female health through social business truly offers an innovative practice to the current health care marketplace in Bangladesh with a new approach to health education and service. This financially sustainable and replicable model will help address the health-related needs of the hardest-to-reach girls, while creating employment for thousands.

Specifically, the Grameen Nurse Institute will both benefit girls as recipients of health care services and information and position them as the future health care workforce by:

1. Addressing the shortage of nurses through innovative teaching techniques and recruitment of rural young women

2. Creating an avant-garde curriculum focused on the unique health needs of adolescent girls, and

3. Creating a sustainable social business model with nurses, as opposed to doctors, as the central actors of the health care system

“The health of girls and women is a true indicator of the health of a nation and of the next generation. If girls and women are not healthy, we are all at a disadvantage,” said Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder and managing director of Grameen Bank. “Girls have been invisible to the health care system far too long; they must be at the center of it. By engaging girls and young women to provide quality health care for those around them, we can address girls’ health needs while creating productive livelihoods and a healthier society overall.”