KATHY HOLLOWAY highlights a campaign aimed at placing nursing in the limelight this year
The beginning of a New Year brings an imperative to make New Year resolutions – the internet can provide inspiration to assist you in this. Why not make 2010 the year that you join a global movement to celebrate nursing and promote a healthier world?
As you may be aware, 2010 is the centennial year of the death of the founder of modern nursing – Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). To celebrate this historic milestone, the 2010 IYNurse initiative was established three years ago to actively involve the world’s nurses – estimated to be more than 15 million – in a celebration of commitment to bring health to their communities, locally and worldwide. An American-Anglo alliance of the Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH) and the Florence Nightingale Museum (FNM), London, have brought together nurse leaders from across the globe to develop the International Year of the Nurse (2010 IYNurse) campaign and to strongly lobby the United Nations for a resolution to declare 2010 the International Year of the Nurse. You can follow progress at www.nightingaledeclaration.net
The overall aim of the 2010 IYNurse initiative is to provide nurses with innovative opportunities to broaden the scope of their health education and health promotion practices as well as bringing their trusted global voices to express their concerns and to establish significant and effective global platforms for their advocacy. This work builds on the work of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed to by 189 nations and signed by 147 world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000. The MDGs are:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
The 2010 IYNurse campaign articulates the contribution that nurses make in advocating for and helping to achieve these goals. (For further information about the goals see www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml) The ultimate aim is to have a sustained platform for millions of nurses to call for renewed commitment – globally, nationally, regionally and locally – to establish and implement a worldwide mandate toward achieving a healthy world. Sound like something you need to be part of? Check it out at www.2010iynurse.net today!
You will not be alone as even by October 2009, more than 20,000 individuals from 110 nations – including 1000 who represent millions of constituents – have declared grassroots support for the 2010 IYNurse as a catalyst to increase public awareness about the priority of health worldwide and to support the United Nation’s action plans to achieve a healthy world by 2020. Check out the website for resources to assist you in planning celebrations and remember – with awareness comes choice for a healthy world.
Kathy Holloway is associate dean of the Faculty of Health Education and Social Sciences at Whitireia Community Polytechnic.
