With our tuition-free program, dozens and eventually hundreds of nurses will be providing care to rural Honduras. The Honduras healthcare system, especially in rural areas, is largely dependent on foreign workers, and many of these areas only receive care for short periods of the year. We believe Honduras' healthcare should depend on Hondurans, and this program is intended to increase its capacity to do so. They will also work closely with our medical service trip program to improve longitudinal care.

Nurses will graduate with a public degree certified by the government, allowing graduated nurses to be competitive in the job market. We are currently building partnerships with health clinics and hospitals around the country to create pipelines for our nurses after graduation.

Career opportunities like this in rural regions of the country are scarce - there is little connection to the cities, where most universities are located. If there is access to a school, it is likely to be too expensive, or unrealistic for those with jobs. Our tuition-free program is intended to provide interested Hondurans with professional opportunities to improve the overall health of their communities.

Throughout the course of the program, students conduct community health education seminars in their home villages. The goal of these seminars is to teach primary prevention and healthy lifestyle practices, and we expect these seminars to eventually educate thousands of Hondurans.

Longitudinal surveys regarding basic health knowledge and behaviors will be collected to evaluate our program’s success. These outcomes will allow us to better tailor the nursing students' activities to current needs and serve as a model for future community-based education programs. Our integrated community health curriculum makes our school the only one of its kind in Honduras.