As a nursing student in the United States, it’s sometimes hard to imagine a world where bandages, stethoscopes, and up-to-date books are rare commodities. Students and professors at Mount Carmel College of Nursing (MCCN) in Columbus, OH, took action to bring information and some of those supplies to fellow nursing students in Gambia, Africa.

When MCCN graduate Kellie Seelig was finishing up her two-year peace corps duty in Gambia earlier this year, she recognized the pressing need for adequate resources in the region’s nursing schools. She asked Dawn Hughes, MS, RN, assistant professor at MCCN, for assistance in setting up a “sister” program between the college in Ohio and three of the Gambian nursing schools.

One of the first initiatives was to set up e-mail pen-pals between the MCCN students and the African students, said Hughes.

“It was interesting since they didn’t consistently have electricity [in Gambia],” says Hughes, who is a faculty advisor for the Student Nurses’ Association of Mount Carmel. “They were lucky for an hour of messaging time a month. But students seemed to enjoy it.”

But MCCN students knew they couldn’t stop there. The college decided to raise money to purchase nursing supplies (such as stethoscopes, bandages, and scissors) to ship to Africa. They hosted a Mystery Dinner Theater, and also accepted donations and new/gently used medical supplies. In total, the students raised about $1,400 to purchase books and supplies, says Hughes.

“The students did a nice job of raising money,” says Hughes. “To raise as much as they did was extraordinary.”

Originally, MCCN wasn’t going to ship books to Africa due to the incredibly expensive shipping costs. But Seelig suggested partnering with www.WingsoftheDawn.org, an organization based in Texas that is dedicated to improving education in poor, underdeveloped countries. The college was responsible for shipping only the 18 boxes of books (weighing about 840 pounds) from Ohio to Ft. Worth, TX, costing MCCN around $500 altogether.

“It probably would have cost me $500 a box to ship it to Africa,” says Hughes.

Sarah Baker, who graduated from MCCN in May, and Angie Snyder, a current BSN sophomore at MCCN, spent two weeks with Seelig this summer helping out with the project. The nursing students in Gambia have so little in terms of books and supplies that anything they received was gratefully accepted, says Hughes.

“They didn’t care if the books were a little dated, since at least they had something,” says Hughes. MCCN sent mostly nursing texts, but also shipped English, science, and reference books. Faculty members also donated lecture materials and handouts by putting them on Flash drives and sending them along to be uploaded onto computers in Africa. MCCN also packed and shipped nursing videos, transparencies, and “anything else we could come up with that we thought would be useful,” says Hughes.

Additionally, the college shipped over basic necessities such as toothpaste and toothbrushes, along with fun items such as Beanie Babies.

Students in Gambia have sent their well-wishes through Seelig. “It’s been tremendous,” says Hughes.

And the students’ access to the Internet has improved since the beginning of the venture, says Hughes. “Now, they have fairly steady electricity, at least during class hours,” she says. “Students have to share computers and don’t get a whole lot of time on them, but at least they’ve got them available.”