Licenced Nurse Volunteering Abroad in Africa

Mutual Empowerment of Local & Nurse Volunteers in Africa

Our nurse volunteering placements abroad can be up to 3 months in Ghana, 8 weeks in Uganda, and 6 months in Kenya. We also offer a course for tropical nurse training and nurse volunteering in Sri Lanka, each of which will provide you with a wealth of experience, that could support your career, applications to MSF, for further career development courses, and will broaden your knowledge and understanding of health care and healthcare systems .

Nursing can be a demanding career anywhere, all the more so in low-income low resource countries where demands on nurses are often greater than the support they can draw upon. Therefore your presence offers vital support and encouragement to the local healthcare professionals you’ll work with there.

The global shortage of healthcare workers disproportionately impacts the Africa and SE Asia regions, which is where we offer nurse volunteering placements. The WHO estimates that sub-Saharan Africa, has 11% of the world's population, with 24% of the global disease burden, yet has only 3% of the global health workforce, and spends less than 1% of the world's financial resources on health

Nurse training itself in Africa is focused largely on the technical delivery of clinical care, and as our partners there explain, traditional ideas of health, ‘luck’, ‘magic’, and causes of illness, and cures can compete with modern practice and knowledge. The local nurses and project leaders you work with understand this, and play a pivotal role in disease prevention and public health awareness, alongside the provision of primary and community care.

Conditions do vary across the region, but overall, rural areas are in more need of healthcare professionals than urban areas, where most professionals globally work for the better opportunities afforded. In urban areas in Africa, a majority reside in informal settlements, and as the delivery of services and facilities does depend on formal systems and structure, their inhabitants have even poorer health than people in rural areas where 60% live.

Give A Fig Volunteering’s nurse volunteers are placed in urban locations, that in Ghana, and Uganda, (and Sri Lanka), are teaching hospitals. There can be scope within that for other settings, and there is a wider choice of settings and locations in Kenya.

Our nurse volunteers will be locally licenced by us through the local health board, and in Kenya by the national health ministry. You will  benefit greatly from the insights gained from working in these settings, which will enable a transfer of skills between local and volunteer nurses. As western countries become increasingly diverse, this wider understanding of health provision and views of health, wellbeing, cause and treatment can help develop a more holistic approach and empathy when supporting patients from the areas in western cities.

The presence of nurse volunteers in Africa is greatly appreciated, respected, and supported, and you’ll be warmly received.

“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease”

- William Osler -