A Partnership in Caring was established in 2010, becoming a society in 2015.
A Partnership in Caring (APIC) is a volunteer organization. Volunteers have been travelling to Rwanda yearly since 2011.
The idea for a partnership between a local group of health professionals at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada and the Butare University Teaching Hospital (BUTH) in Rwanda, Africa came out of an initial clinical placement of Canadian nursing students from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada in April of 2008.
APIC established an ongoing partnership focusing on capacity building initially with BUTH and expanding to community organizations. APICS also supports the Benebikira Sisters with their schools and health centres as well as the Association for the Development of Blind people and others handicapped in Rwanda (ADAR).
A Partnership In Caring (APIC) has responded to the needs of the Rwandan people by:
- Contributing food, transportation, medication, diagnostic testing for patients who have no insurance.
- Facilitated education sessions to hospital staff in the areas of Palliative Care, Mental Health, Newborn Care and Wound Care.
- Coordinated education and provided funding for seventy-five nurses to train in newborn resuscitation (Helping Babies Breathe).
- Purchased resuscitation bags, newborn cord clamps and identification bracelets for mothers and newborns.
- Purchased Stethoscopes, Pulse Oximetry, Blood Glucose Meters, and mattresses.
- Sponsored a nurse to receive five weeks of training in Palliative Care.
- Provided much needed equipment and supplies for ADAR.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead