Why NIGH? Why Now?
Health is not only to be well, but to use well, every power we have..
~ Florence Nightingale, 1893
Following in Florence Nightingale's footsteps, the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health — NIGH — is committed to sharing health with the world.
More than ever before, we are each impacted by the health of everyone else around the world.
Yet, most critical global health issues are under-reported, under-valued and poorly understood.
Although nurses and many others have important knowledge, experience and wisdom, they have yet to effectively share what they know with the general public — with the global community.
When we connect these dots — we see new levels of innovation to work on these issues.
Why & How You Make A Difference
Our Purpose
The Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH) is a catalytic grassroots-to-global movement for:
- DARING to tell the untold and forgotten stories of global health
- CARING to engage and empower the public voices of nurses, midwives and concerned citizens
- SHARING this opportunity wherever possible, with everyone—everywhere!
Daring to Tell Our Stories to The World
Our Mission
NIGH’s mission is to inform and empower nurses and other health care workers and educators to become ‘21st Century Nightingales’ — working in the local, national and global community to build a healthy world.
NIGH seeks to achieve a healthy world by:
- Enabling peoples of the United Nations, as citizens of its Member States, to work together in a worldwide campaign for health as the top global priority;
- Enlisting nurses, other health care workers, educators and concerned citizens to work together effectively — and to collaborate with others of like-mind, heart and spirit — in mobilizing public opinion to this purpose;
- Encouraging individual initiative and cooperative action toward these ends by highlighting the life of Florence Nightingale and the lives other nurses and health care workers—past and present—who have devoted themselves to building a healthy world.
Our Current Campaign: Daring, Caring & Sharing to Save Mothers’ Lives
Our Goals
To build a grassroots movement among nurses, health care workers, educators and concerned citizens — from every country and community — who work together to inform, educate and mobilize public opinion throughout the world towards the adoption of health as the universal priority of the United Nations and its Member States;
- To use communications, media, performing arts and promotional tools for advocacy of these ends;
- To identify, share and actively encourage ‘approaches that work’ to create a healthy world;
- To contribute positive solutions to the worldwide nursing shortage.
How NIGH Began
Seeking to build upon Florence Nightingale’s timeless, universal legacy, NIGH’s mandate has emerged from in-depth studies of her phenomenal life-work. Beyond the ‘lady of the lamp’ image of devotion during the Crimean War—and then, beyond her founding of modern secular nursing education—Nightingale’s work contributed greatly to the global health of her time.
NIGH’s founders—Nightingale scholars, nursing educators, researchers, clinicians, community health activists, communicators and strategists working on grassroots-to-global concerns—have seen the development of NIGH as an innovative model to experience and understand the value of Florence’s wider accomplishments—her relevance to the 21st century.
The NIGH Dream
NIGH is the direct outgrowth of a dream first shared in 1999 by several Nightingale scholars, as they prepared to publish new Nightingale research that later became the textbook “Florence Nightingale Today: Healing, Leadership, Global Action.” In preparation for the new millennium, three of the co-authors – who also co-founded NIGH — asked themselves “what would Florence Nightingale have done with email, fax machines and the brand new World-Wide Web?”
To answer this then, NIGH’s founders first crafted the ‘Nightingale Declaration for a Healthy World’—that has since become an online commitment for at least 22,000 nurses, midwives and concerned citizens from 106 nations, with a 1000 of these leaders signing on behalf of groups totaling more than 3 million people. If you have yet to sign this Declaration, you can do so here.
Now we are still asking, "what would Nightingale have done with YouTube and Social Media?” NIGH's growing grassroots-to-global team continues to develop answers to these questions and to continually update our ability to more-effectively achieve our Mandate and Purpose.
We welcome your participation in this growing movement. Your support is much appreciated! Please contact us with your ideas. Your contributions are wonderful!
How We Work
Established, in 2004, as a US non-profit 501(c)3 in Washington, DC, ‘NIGH USA’ with the now parent organization: 'NIGH World '— a Canadian non-profit corporation formed in 2007 — NIGH's support derives from private donations, sponsorships, partnerships, in-kind and pro-bono contributions. We are now exploring further support for specific projects from grants and foundations and through upcoming collaborations with schools, universities, media and organizations with similar goals.
We are very appreciative of our ongoing collaboration with IPS — the Inter Press Service News Agency and our collaboration with global nursing leaders and WHO colleagues to create video projects — in many languages — related to our mandate: “Nurses & Midwives: Now More Than Ever for a Healthy World.” We are also grateful to regularly access rich digital imagery with permission from K4Health’s Photoshare and with attribution to Wikimedia Commons.
Currently, all of NIGH's staff volunteer their time and efforts to achieve NIGH's mandates.
NIGH’s founding and progress, since 2004, has been achieved through worldwide friendships formed in the sharing of common goals.
NIGH's core team includes experts in global communications strategies — experienced in advancing informed concerns. Among these ‘friends’ are those who have worked within the United Nations, its Agencies and related collaborating organizations of civil society. Our founders—who developed NIGH from these UN perspectives—often referred to their experience based upon United Nations ‘Development Support Communications’ ideas. Our current teams responsible for NIGH’s development are our NIGH World Board of Directors and our NIGH USA Board of Directors.
Through our core networks, NIGH is now developing affiliated teams in Beijing, Geneva, Kampala, Mumbai, New York City, Toronto, Washington DC — and at our new NIGH World 'Headquarters' based in Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada. We also appreciate the support, encouragement and wisdom of Advisors from across the United States and around the world. We envision this work established in places everywhere. If you would like to explore how you can collaborate with us to build NIGH in your region, you are always welcome to contact us.
Two of our New York City volunteers who recently graduated from the Adelphi University School of Nursing — Devorah Goldberg and Hitesh Jani — are currently working to develop NIGH’s Facebook and Linkedin pages.
NIGH's UN Status
In 2008, the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health was awarded United Nations DPI — Department of Public Information — Status in recognition of NIGH's work to increase global public awareness about issues related to United Nations' mandates, agencies, concerns and related projects worldwide.
In 2012, NIGH established a working team of volunteers — based in New York City and to collaborate with our team in Geneva — to officially work with NIGH as UN NGO DPI Representatives.
As we continue to build our grassroots-to-global teams and their worldwide work, we are also aiming to apply for UN ECOSOC Consultative Status — so that we can more effectively serve grassroots-level nurses, midwives and concerned citizens at global levels.
Location
Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada
Website
Facebook page: Nightingale Initiative for Global Health
