Elms College Awarded $1.27 Million Grant from W.K. Kellogg Foundation

CHICOPEE — Elms College has been awarded a $1.27 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to continue its program that started in 2019 to enhance healthcare education and outcomes in Haiti.

This grant will support the ongoing partnership between Elms College School of Nursing and the Episcopal University of Haiti (Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de Léogâne). This partnership invests in the professional development of nursing faculty in Haiti and directly addresses that country’s pressing healthcare challenges, including low life expectancy and high infant mortality rates.

“Elms College is extremely grateful to the Kellogg Foundation for their continued support of our work in Haiti. Elms College and the Kellogg Foundation have a common objective to effect positive change in our community and the world,” Elms College President Harry Dumay said. “Thanks to the foundation’s support, our highly regarded School of Nursing is partnering with a sister institution in Haiti to educate Haitian nurse educators who are true pockets of hope for their communities.”

For more than four years, Elms College has collaborated with the university to provide advanced training to Haitian nursing faculty, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has been there since the beginning. Elms College received an initial grant of $750,000 in 2019 and a $1.2 million grant in 2022 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to work toward its goal of improving healthcare in Haiti.

Nurses are pivotal in Haiti’s healthcare system, where they, rather than doctors, deliver most medical care, and this partnership equips them with the latest healthcare knowledge. It aims to strengthen the skills of nursing educators, empowering them to better prepare their students to meet the critical healthcare needs of Haiti.

This past June, the program graduated its fourth cohort of nursing faculty, who will now be able to better educate their students and improve the quality of the care for patients. The nurse educators have consistently expressed their pride in being part of this program, a growing sense of professionalism, and their strong commitment to improving healthcare in Haiti.

“This is Elms College at its best,” said Joyce Hampton, vice president of Academic Affairs. “We are using our excellence and innovation in nursing to effect positive change globally in solidarity with our Haitian partners.”

The program is also supported by the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Haiti Nursing Continuing Program Endowment, established by the D’Amour Family.