Preparing Nursing Students to Study Abroad

On September 17, Barbara Muffoletto, MPH, senior program manager at Impact Global Health Alliance (IGHA), and Anne Kerubo, project coordinator of Kisii Konya Oroiboro Project (KIKOP), visited Meredith College to share their work.  

They presented to Master of Biological Sciences students in a public health course taught by Carolina Perez-Heydrich. 

The presentation was coordinated by Michelle Hartman, Meredith nursing program director, who is spearheading a new study abroad partnership with IGHA and KIKOP. The collaboration aims to launch a study abroad program in Kenya for Meredith nursing students, with the first group set to travel in summer 2028. 

Hartman visited Kenya in summer 2025 to begin developing the program. Her trip was made possible through a gift to Meredith from the family of Ruth W. Holleman.

During the September campus visit, Kerubo and Muffoletto described how IGHA and KIKOP partner with the Kenyan Ministry of Health to advance maternal and child health. The model utilized by KIKOP begins by training Care Group volunteers who their peers have selected. The Care Group volunteers then train small groups of women and mothers in their neighborhood on essential health practices. Lessons focus on water treatment, sanitation, handwashing, nutrition, birth plans, and other public health priorities. This peer-to-peer, story-based model reaches approximately 2,000 mothers each month and has contributed to a 71% reduction in maternal mortality and a 76% reduction in infant mortality.

“In the care groups, mothers are doing the training, which is very important,” said Muffoletto. “They are not reading the lesson to the mothers; they are taught the lesson, and replicate the lesson. A practice-based, story-based learning method is why it is successful.”

Hartman witnessed the program in action during her site visit. “They would role-play how a woman would put her birth plan into action when it was time to deliver. Their lessons incorporate active learning and have proven to be quite successful,” she said.

Through the planned study abroad program, Meredith students will spend 10–14 days in Kenya while enrolled in the community and public health nursing course. Their experience will include clinical rotations with KIKOP nurses and clinical officers, participation in home visits, and involvement in community health worker meetings. Students will also undergo a comprehensive orientation on cultural humility at the beginning of the study abroad experience.

“We will work with KIKOP to determine other areas in which we could support their mission and work,” Hartman noted. “That may include staff education or data collection for ongoing projects.”

Both Kerubo and Muffoletto emphasized the supportive environment students will encounter in Kenya. “Everyone in the community is very supportive, and we support the students through the whole process,” Kerubo said.

The Holleman family is making the new program possible in two ways: by funding Hartman’s initial site visit and by establishing a scholarship to help nursing students participate in future study abroad opportunities. Their mother, Ruth W. Holleman, was a trailblazer in community health. She served as chair of Rex Hospital’s Department of Anesthesia and worked as a nurse anesthetist in central North Carolina’s psychiatric and prison hospitals. During segregation, she also provided anesthesia services at Raleigh’s St. Agnes Hospital, which served the African-American community.

With Holleman’s legacy as inspiration, Meredith nursing students will soon gain invaluable opportunities to learn, serve, and grow as global health professionals.