Author: Paul and Laura Manship

The Montana Brigade of 15 members was comprised of 2 instructors, an advanced nursing student and 12 undergraduate nurses in their final semester. The group was comprised of members from different satellite campuses of Montana State University College of Nursing. They brought with them enthusiasm and energy while representing the Western Shoulder to Shoulder affiliates. Over the week and a half they had 512 encounters while visiting over 10 communities. They performed greatly needed tasks such as home visits, consults in our health centers and clinic, health fairs and the painting of a mural with scholarship students. We thank each and everyone of them for their service and hard work and wish them all the best as many of them will graduate in December.

A few quotes from our brigade members about the experience:
“I am excited for the what Shoulder to Shoulder does. I am proud and thankful for an organization that facilitates cross cultural experiences that lead to providing a sustainable health improvement for the citizens of Honduras.”
“I enjoyed being in communities and providing care. I feel like I received a rural health experience.”
“Honestly. I thought I would learn a lot and have interesting experiences, but I never suspected that it would be a complete BLAST! I had so much fun and learned so much!”

The University of Rochester brigade was comprised of 2 attendings, 7 residents, 2 medical students, and 1 social worker. They spent their two weeks stationed in their affiliate community of San Jose, San Marcos. Through furthering their relationships with the community, they also oversaw many projects. Several of these projects include latrine building, cookstove building, a scholarship program, a microfinance project, and fish farm building. Their trip was complete with many meetings as a means to support existing projects and to discern possible ways of expansion in the future. Brigade members also saw around 100 patients in the clinic, attended to patients through home visits, hiked to the neighboring community of Las Delicias to oversee a partnership there, met with the scholarship students, and traveled to local schools to do a project with the classes and to give a health talk about proper injury care. The brigade stayed at the local school and at the newly built volunteer house, both complete with beautiful views of the mountains and surrounding areas. Through all of their hard work, the University of Rochester has clearly had a positive influence in San Jose and this relationship will continue to foster change in the future!