UIndy nursing majors Madeleine Hacker (left) and Alissa Stewart examine a small child during a Spring Term service trip to Ecuador.
In a hot and humid but ultimately rewarding experience, a contingent led by UIndy’s School of Nursing took a Spring Term service trip to Ecuador this month, providing medical services to more than 700 impoverished urban and rural residents.
Nursing Instructor Rebecca Cartledge and Assistant Professor Kathy Hetzler accompanied 17 students from various majors on the trip to Santo Domingo de los Colorados, where they worked in neighborhoods with unpaved streets and no running water. They also spent a day outside the city serving members of the Tsáchila indigenous group. Among other activities, the UIndy crew assisted in health clinics and pharmacies, conducted simple medical tests, fitted elderly people for reading glasses and entertained the local kids.
“The students were touched by the friendliness of the people,” said Cartledge, veteran of many UIndy service trips, including three previous visits to Ecuador.
Most of the group returned May 20, but several students remained for two weeks of teaching and mission work with local children.
