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alumni care to change the world In working to ameliorate effects of a lethal famine, Kelly Delaney, Nu ’03, has demonstrated how she has exercised various aspects of her nursing knowledge to protect and empower a dangerously vulnerable group of people. As the only professional healthcare provider in Mandera, Kenya, some of the key strategies she has implemented are: assessing health at the levels of the individual, family, and whole population; gathering evidence for epidemiologic surveillance: she documented increases in the occurrence of malnutrition, and infectious diseases such as shigella (from contaminated water) and tuberculosis (an early indicator of approaching famine because the immune system of a body weakened by even moderate malnutrition becomes too weak to quell the agents causing tuberculosis); empowerment and health education of volunteer home visitors, training them so they could take accurate measurements of children that were necessary to identify the type of therapeutic feeding each child needed; and advocacy for an isolated people struggling to survive against severe odds: she went to mass media to voice the calls for assistance, and was quoted in newspapers in more than 30 countries. The nursing measures that Kelly undertook exemplify the School of Nursing’s commitment, as a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Nursing and Midwifery Leadership, to prepare our graduates to implement essential nursing competencies to reduce infant and child mortality and morbidity, and to build capacity of community leaders to carry out culturally relevant and developmentally appropriate evidence-based risk reduction and health promotion programs. MARJORIE MUECKE, PhD, RN, FAAN, Assistant Dean for Global Health Affairs, Associate Director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Nursing and Midwifery Leadership, and Adjunct Professor of Nursing 18 care to change the world
care to change the world From Penn Nursing to Africa Two years ago, Kelly Delaney, Nu ’03, was navigating the streets of New York City with the cacophony of taxicabs, pedestrians, messengers, and vending carts in the midst of the world’s hub for communications, publishing, television, and advertising. This year, she is in the Sudan with no phone, no internet access, no mail. But her path from Penn to New York to Africa has changed her worldview. As a member of Action Against Hunger (AAH), she runs emergency feeding programs for children under five years old and community-based health and hygiene education programs in Kenya and the Sudan. Ms. Delaney, a Hillman Scholars Program alumna, worked at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center after graduation to fulfill the Hillman program’s service requirements, but learned about herself in the process. “As my Hillman requirement came to an end, I decided that I wanted to combine my love for travel with my experiences working in the West Philadelphia community as an undergrad,” she says. “I looked for international aid positions and found AAH. I liked their approach to emergency relief – emergency response followed by development work to address the root causes of the emergency. I applied for a nurse/nutrition position, and in September 2005, I found myself in Mandera, Kenya, a small town on the border of Ethiopia and Somalia.” AAH operates in more than 40 countries under emergency circumstances such as war, conflict, and natural disasters and then develops longer-term assistance programs for people in distress. The conditions Ms. Delaney faces in Africa are extreme. In 2005, Kenya – a country with more than 34 million inhabitants – had an infant mortality rate of 79 per 1,000 live births and an average life expectancy of 48 years, according to UNICEF. AAH reports the malnutrition rate in northeastern Kenya is 23 percent. Drought, poor land conditions, loss of herds, and tribal fighting have contributed to an increase in the number of refugees. (continued) school of nursing redesignated by who ⁄ paho The School of Nursing was redesignated as a World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization (WHO/PAHO) Collaborating Center for Nursing and Midwifery Leadership, through 2010, announced Afaf I. Meleis, PhD, DrPS(hon), FAAN, FRCN, the Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing. Dean Meleis will continue to serve as Director of the Collaborating Center. Assistant Dean for Global Health Affairs Marjorie Muecke, PhD, RN, FAAN, will serve as the Center’s Associate Director. under the new terms of reference, the school will: • Promote the growth and stability of nursing human resources to improve the quality of care and delivery of nursing health services management. • Lead the development and implementation of essential nursing and midwifery competencies to reduce maternal/neonatal mortality and morbidity and to promote the health and well-being of women. Kelly Delaney, Nu ’03, attends to a child in Mandera, Kenya. • Build capacity of healthcare workers and community leaders to design, train, modify, translate, and implement culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate, evidence-based HIV risk reduction and health promotion programs. “We feel that these Terms of Reference capture the expertise and interest of the greatest number of our faculty and look forward to the activities and involvement of all in our international mission,” says Dean Meleis. 19
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