In the early 2000s, Hilda Alcindor had already had a decades-long career as a nurse and teacher. Her two daughters were grown and making their way in the world. Alcindor was living in Miami, where she worked at Mt. Sinai Medical Center and taught at North Miami High School. She was beginning to have the sort of feeling with which some empty-nesters are all too familiar.
“One Sunday I was at church,” Alcindor tells Diverse. “For some reason I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to find my purpose in life.’ I was alone in the house so I needed to find something to do. Even though I was working, I said to myself, ‘I can do better than that.’”
Serendipitously, Alcindor says, she soon received a call from organizers affiliated with the Presbyterian Church who were working to create a nursing school, FSIL (Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de l’Université Episcopale d’Haïti), in Léogâne, Haiti. They were looking for a dean for FSIL and wanted to know if she would consider the position.
At first, Alcindor was skeptical. “I said, ‘I don’t know how to be a dean,’” she says. Nevertheless, Alcindor was persuaded to make a visit to Léogâne to visit the new school. Soon, she was sold on the idea. With its new leader in place, FSIL opened its doors to its first class of 36 Haitian students in 2005.
Fast forward 10 years and FSIL has already graduated 115 students. The latest cohort of 15 graduates celebrated the successful completion of their studies in late October. FSIL was recently evaluated during the Haiti’s Ministry of Health reconnaissance, or accreditation process, of the country’s nursing schools. FSIL was ranked among Haiti’s best.
What differentiates FSIL from other nursing schools in Haiti is that it offers a baccalaureate in nursing. The majority of nurses in Haiti, including those at the public university, are educated no further than the diploma level.
From the outset, FSIL students were taught by Haitians and volunteers from the United States. “Our real goal is not to teach, but to teach the teacher,” says Dr. Joanne Pohl, president of the Haiti Nursing Foundation (HNF) and professor emerita at the University of Michigan School of Nursing. “We are very focused on the development of our Haitian faculty. We really want this to be Haitian run and Haitian led.” HNF is a nonprofit that was incorporated in 2005 to serve as FSIL’s fundraising arm.
