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You send nursing students out to The Gambia, and then it’s a matter of ‘wait and see’. There’s always an element of trial and error. Students have to react outside their comfort zones: plane tickets, visas, accommodation, etc. There are many arrangements to be made before departure.
Once there, they learn to use their learning opportunities in a new culture.
They return home ‘richer’, with new professional insights: how do nurses work locally, how do people deal with health, illness and death, etc. On a personal level, they learn a great deal about themselves. Their view of reality becomes so much broader; there are other ways of living and they look at their own reality from a new perspective.
Travelling to The Gambia for this is really worthwhile.
With many thanks to the city of Ostend for making this possible.
Geert Demesmaeker
Lecturer at Artevelde University of Applied Sciences.
