The Foundation

The Gwen Tross Foundation for Nursing Research was established in March of 2007. The purpose of the Foundation is to provide funding to BSc Nursing students at the University of Guyana to carry out research-related activities on local public health issues.

History of the Foundation

Trustee members Jody and Paul spent six months in Georgetown, Guyana between September 2005 and February 2006, where Jody worked as a research associate with the Canadian Society for International Health. As part of the Public Health Strengthening in Guyana project, Jody developed a curriculum for a research methods course for nursing students at the University of Guyana. Jody taught the course in the fall of 2005 and played an advisory role for students participating in research projects the following semester. To accomplish this, Jody worked in collaboration with Nurse Gwen Tross, an amazingly driven woman who made it her personal goal to create and strengthen an undergraduate nursing program at the University of Guyana to leave as her legacy.

One unfortunate reality that Gwen continually came up against is the lack of resources within the University. Gwen has used her contacts in England to single-handedly build up the library resources for nursing students and has invested her time in helping nursing students apply for meagre international grants to conduct small scale research projects. Along with Gwen, there is a small group of dedicated health sciences faculty members that have encouraged students to present research at local conferences and publish their research in Caribbean-based journals.

Inspired by Gwen’s generosity Jody and Paul would like to help the BSc Nursing program continue and encourage nursing students to pursue much-needed public health research in Guyana. Shortly after their departure, Jody and Paul arranged for Health Sciences books to be donated to the program with the assistance of the Students’ International Health Association and Subtitles bookstore at the University of Alberta and the Canadian Society for International Health. Their next goal is to provide an annual grant of $500 for a group of nursing students to pursue a small research project as part of their coursework. To do so, they have established the Gwen Tross Research Foundation in partnership with Gwen and the University of Guyana.

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