June 16, 2017 - On the thirtieth anniversary of Project Belize (www.projectbelize.org) six nurses connected through Panola College were reunited. When Barbara Cordell began taking Panola College nursing students on the medical mission trip in 2000, one of the students that year was Bobby Yarborough. Several years after he graduated, he came back to teach at Panola College for a few years and then moved to Emergency nursing, but has continued to participate in Project Belize many times over the years.
This year, Reyna Avila from the LVN-RN Transition program at Panola College participated in the Project Belize course on Transcultural Nursing. This marks the twenty-second year Dr. Cordell has been going on the medical mission, and her seventeenth year to offer the course to nursing students through the college.
The other three nurses came initially as students as well and now return when able to volunteer their time and skill as nurses to the project. This year the six nurses joined other nurses, doctors, and volunteers to provide medical care to over 1,500 Mayan Indians in the remote jungles of Belize. This is often the only care these villagers receive in a year. All volunteers pay their own way and all donations are used for medicines and supplies.
