Living and caring for people in a ‘global village’ creates a responsibility to prepare future nurses to think, act and collaborate within a global framework.  This presentation will describe how a Canadian university took innovative steps to integrate a global health perspective in its nursing curriculum and develop partnerships to advance nursing education and practice in a developing country. 

While global health courses described in the literature vary widely in their theoretical focus, conference participants will learn how a post colonial theoretical framework and primary health care tenets were used to shape nursing curriculum. This framework is of relevance for international collaboration because it considers multiple voices from distinct social and historical locations when analyzing health care ideas and practices, rather than privileging Western professionals’ views on health (Anderson, 2002). The post colonial framework also promotes valuable teaching-learning principles by allowing nursing students to explore their multiple perspectives as individuals and future professionals. This includes facilitating reflective learning of the displacement experience through innovative global health clinical placements and international exchange visits.  Participants will discover how these techniques can promote better health care provider understanding of the global experience of diaspora or not belonging to a dominant group (Bhaba, 1994).

In addition to describing a theoretical framework for transforming global health curricula, the presenters will describe an innovative international educational project aimed at promoting knowledge, leadership and service skills acquisition in an African developing country.  Participants will learn how partnerships were developed between transdisciplinary university faculties, teaching hospitals and professional associations in Canada and Africa. Challenges and opportunities in sustaining global collaboration in promoting evidence-based practice will be discussed.