Nursing Graduate Spends Summer In Ghana
Ashley Barbour, ’08 graduate of UNH’s nursing program, spent the summer of 2007 in Asamang, Ghana studying the practices of Ashanti midwives—and herself “catching babies” born at the clinic where she volunteered, her research funded by generous gifts to IROP (the International Research Opportunities Program) from Frank and Patricia Noonan and Samuel and Sarah Paul. When Ashley returned to Durham for her senior year, her mentor Assoc. Prof. of Nursing Gene Harkless encouraged her to seek another grant from the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research to present her research in the summer of 2008 at the International Healthy People for a Healthy World conference in Bangkok, Thailand (a conference co-sponsored by Mahidol University and the University of Michigan’s Schools of Nursing). When Ashley won that presentation grant, she decided “to make the most of her round-trip ticket” by spending the time between her graduation and the conference on 25 June volunteering at Wildflower Home (Ban Dok Mai Pa) in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a shelter for single expectant and recent young mothers. Ashley took charge of prenatal care and labor training, childbirth preparation, and parenting teaching—and then made the 14-hour train ride to Bangkok to present to and speak with midwives from all over the world about the future of midwifery in developing countries. She roomed with a midwife from Kenya (who greeted her as “the Ghana girl”), lunched with a UN member from Zimbabwe, and is now back in New Hampshire studying for her nursing board exam.
The math: one intrepid undergraduate + one inspiring professor + IROP + two summers = nursing research conducted in Ghana, presented professionally in Thailand, and practiced helping women and children on two continents. An IROP triple!
Click here to read the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research's undergraduate profile on Ashley Barbour's work experience with the Ashanti Midwives.