An international partnership between a Canadian and Brazilian University: A descriptive report

Abstract

Post-secondary programs in health are strengthened when curricula and experiences are internationalized. Internationalization encourages students to think, advocate and practice globally; thus, preparing graduates to contribute to health beyond geo-political borders. However, designing and supporting international experiences in undergraduate health curricula can be challenging due to time and resource constraints, costs, language barriers, and collaborative processes within and across organizations; thus, internationalization is not easily achieved. The purpose of this report is to describe an initiative aimed at supporting undergraduate nursing student experiences in an international partnership program between a Brazilian and Canadian university. First, we describe the project. Second, we present the context of the two partnering undergraduate nursing programs and their respective communities. Third, students from each school describe their experiences with the initiative. Fourth, we integrate our experiences with literature to offer three lessons for moving forward using a framework of resource allocation, fair trade learning, and decolonized competencies. Our report is timely as worldwide, universities are eager to build collaborative partnerships with stakeholders to implement internationalization within curricula. Such partnerships can help students learn about health-related experiences for populations living in distinctive social inequality and inequities in accessing health services.