Pictured from left, Adelphi students Anna Gritsyuta, Theresa Criscitelli, RN; and Feruza Muhiddinova; Third Secretary Al-Zibdeh; Holly Shaw, RN, Adelphi associate professor and U.N. representative for the university; and Adelphi students Temanie Barthelemy and Janice Lang.
In support of a grass-roots movement taking place in the global nursing world, students and faculty from Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., attended Human Rights Day 2009 on Dec. 10 at the United Nations to garner interest in a resolution calling for 2010 to be the International Year of the Nurse (2010 IYNurse).
The resolution is the brainchild of three nursing organizations: Sigma Theta Tau International, Nightingale Initiative for Global Health, and the Florence Nightingale Museum, London. The resolution’s mission is to “recognize the contributions of nurses globally and to engage nurses in the promotion of world health, including the U.N. [millennium development goals],” according to the Web site, www.2010iynurse.net. Developed by the U.N. in 2000, the eight millennium development goals seek to make strides in global issues including health, poverty, education, gender, and the environment, among others before 2015.
The resolution consists of three points:
• To acknowledge with gratitude the devotion and dedication of the world’s nurses and midwives and their care and concern for the health and well-being of the peoples of the U.N.
• To encourage their campaign to raise global public awareness and support for the eight U.N. Millennium Development Goals, during their celebration of the 2010 International Year of the Nurse and the Centennial of Florence Nightingale
• To recognize, in particular, the vital worldwide contribution of nurses and midwives in “reducing child mortality and improving maternal health,” as specified in goals four and five, and to express appreciation for their overall commitment to the achievement of these objectives.
Holly Shaw, RN, PhD, associate professor at Adelphi and its representative to the U.N., is committed to this effort. Through her involvement with Sigma Theta Tau, and by using teams of student nurses who are each responsible for choosing the missions they will visit, Shaw will try to reach as many of the 192 U.N. Missions as possible in the coming weeks. Among the nursing-related materials the students will be hand-delivering is Nursing Spectrum’s and NurseWeek's Florence Nightingale commemorative magazine, which highlights the accomplishments and work of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Nightingale’s death.
Shaw and some of her students attended a panel discussion on Race, Poverty, and Power during Human Rights Day 2009. There, they met Samar M. Al-Zibdeh, Third Secretary, The Permanent Mission of the Hashematic Kingdom of Jordan to the United Nations.
“She told us that the Princess Muna Al-Hussein is deeply involved in issues connected to the development of nursing in Jordan and has founded the Princess Muna Scholarship Fund for Nursing,” says Shaw, hoping that coincidence will convince the Jordan Mission to support the International Year of the Nurse.
Student Commitment
Like Shaw, her students are committed to helping the resolution pass. Theresa Criscitelli, RN, an OR nurse at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., and MEd student at Adelphi University, says she hopes the resolution will bring more nurses to the U.N. so they will have a voice. “Nurses can affect a lot of lives in a global sense, lives we didn’t know we would have an impact on,” she says. Criscitelli is in her last semester at Adelphi, and although she is already teaching at Nassau Community College, she plans to use her graduate degree to bring awareness to her colleagues, friends, and neighbors via civic association meetings and town hall gatherings “so I can explain exactly what nurses can do,” she says.
Feruza Muhiddinova, another first-year student, made the trip to the UN almost every Thursday since the fall semester began. Muhiddinova believes nurses have to be actively involved in politics and should seek a partnership with the U.N. When some of her friends read the two narratives about nursing and the U.N. she had written, they told her that her ideas weren’t feasible.
“They told me that they don’t believe the U.N. is effective, that it won’t do anything for us,” she says. “But the U.N. can’t do it alone. We can help. Nursing can be the bridge between the people and the U.N. Once we begin working with them, maybe [people like my friends] will change their minds.”
Tracey Boyd is a regional reporter for Nursing Spectrum.
The resolution is the brainchild of three nursing organizations: Sigma Theta Tau International, Nightingale Initiative for Global Health, and the Florence Nightingale Museum, London. The resolution’s mission is to “recognize the contributions of nurses globally and to engage nurses in the promotion of world health, including the U.N. [millennium development goals],” according to the Web site, www.2010iynurse.net. Developed by the U.N. in 2000, the eight millennium development goals seek to make strides in global issues including health, poverty, education, gender, and the environment, among others before 2015.
The resolution consists of three points:
• To acknowledge with gratitude the devotion and dedication of the world’s nurses and midwives and their care and concern for the health and well-being of the peoples of the U.N.
• To encourage their campaign to raise global public awareness and support for the eight U.N. Millennium Development Goals, during their celebration of the 2010 International Year of the Nurse and the Centennial of Florence Nightingale
• To recognize, in particular, the vital worldwide contribution of nurses and midwives in “reducing child mortality and improving maternal health,” as specified in goals four and five, and to express appreciation for their overall commitment to the achievement of these objectives.
Holly Shaw, RN, PhD, associate professor at Adelphi and its representative to the U.N., is committed to this effort. Through her involvement with Sigma Theta Tau, and by using teams of student nurses who are each responsible for choosing the missions they will visit, Shaw will try to reach as many of the 192 U.N. Missions as possible in the coming weeks. Among the nursing-related materials the students will be hand-delivering is Nursing Spectrum’s and NurseWeek's Florence Nightingale commemorative magazine, which highlights the accomplishments and work of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Nightingale’s death.
Shaw and some of her students attended a panel discussion on Race, Poverty, and Power during Human Rights Day 2009. There, they met Samar M. Al-Zibdeh, Third Secretary, The Permanent Mission of the Hashematic Kingdom of Jordan to the United Nations.
“She told us that the Princess Muna Al-Hussein is deeply involved in issues connected to the development of nursing in Jordan and has founded the Princess Muna Scholarship Fund for Nursing,” says Shaw, hoping that coincidence will convince the Jordan Mission to support the International Year of the Nurse.
Student Commitment
Like Shaw, her students are committed to helping the resolution pass. Theresa Criscitelli, RN, an OR nurse at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., and MEd student at Adelphi University, says she hopes the resolution will bring more nurses to the U.N. so they will have a voice. “Nurses can affect a lot of lives in a global sense, lives we didn’t know we would have an impact on,” she says. Criscitelli is in her last semester at Adelphi, and although she is already teaching at Nassau Community College, she plans to use her graduate degree to bring awareness to her colleagues, friends, and neighbors via civic association meetings and town hall gatherings “so I can explain exactly what nurses can do,” she says.
Feruza Muhiddinova, another first-year student, made the trip to the UN almost every Thursday since the fall semester began. Muhiddinova believes nurses have to be actively involved in politics and should seek a partnership with the U.N. When some of her friends read the two narratives about nursing and the U.N. she had written, they told her that her ideas weren’t feasible.
“They told me that they don’t believe the U.N. is effective, that it won’t do anything for us,” she says. “But the U.N. can’t do it alone. We can help. Nursing can be the bridge between the people and the U.N. Once we begin working with them, maybe [people like my friends] will change their minds.”
Tracey Boyd is a regional reporter for Nursing Spectrum.
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