Shumaker School of Nursing, Fairbank James Friendship Memorial Hospital, Vadala

Nurses are the medical professionals perhaps closest to the needs of their local communities, as usually they are from and live in the towns and villages they serve.  Nursing as a profession also provides a steady income for the nurses' families, many of which rely on the mother as the head of the household.  There are two nurse training programs which are especially deserving of Global Ministries' support.  The Shumaker School of Nursing at the Vadala Mission in Maharashtra State offers three-year nurses training programs.  It has successfully graduated full classes of nurses since 2003 when the program was resumed after an absence. 

Occasionally Global Ministries receives requests for scholarship assistance from the Vada Mission for nurses to secure post-graduate training so that they can fill leadership roles at the nursing schools and in the hospitals.

Programs like this one provide critical opportunities for nursing education and produce well-trained nurses who are easily employed in hospitals throughout the region.  While studying nursing, students provide needed nursing services in their affiliated hospitals, as well as in each hospital's program of outreach, education, and preventive medicine which the hospital staffs take to the dozens of villages in their immediate areas. 

A scholarship of $750 will provide tuition and living expenses for one nursing student for one semester, while a gift of $1,500 will support a nurse in training for one year.