St. John鈥檚 College President Mirtha Alicia Peralta, center, has been the driving force behind her school鈥檚 new nursing program. Pictured with her are the program鈥檚 first four faculty members, Belizean nurses who are all at work on masters degrees at 亚色影库鈥檚 Connell School of Nursing. From left are Ingrid Asusenia Gomez, Marcia Aldana-Lennen, Areli Rodriguez, and Brithney Ortega.
Photo: Michael Palacio
Partners in Health Care聽聽聽聽聽 聽聽
How tiny St. John鈥檚 College and 亚色影库鈥檚 Connell School joined forces to launch a desperately needed new nursing school in Belize.
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This is the story of a newly launched nursing school in Belize, a tiny English-speaking nation in Central America that is home to four hundred thousand people. But really the tale reads more like the parable of the loaves and the fishes, and it stars a vigorous and driven Belizean woman, Mirtha Alicia 鈥淎lice鈥� Peralta, who has never had many resources at hand, even though she is the president of a small Jesuit college.聽聽
St. John鈥檚 College sits in a country where the per capita income is about a fifth what it is in the US, and it has just 103 university students (along with 700 high schoolers and 1,305 junior college students). It鈥檚 received financial help and scholarly guidance from Boston College in recent years, but its endowment is tiny. But that was no roadblock for Peralta when she began thinking, a couple of years ago, of launching a nursing program at St. John鈥檚. It was just another obstacle to wriggle past.
Peralta yearned to start minting nurses because Belize has a shortage. There are an estimated 1,200 nurses in the entire nation, and the need for more is particularly acute in the poorest and southernmost of Belize鈥檚 six districts, Toledo. Most of the residents there are Mayan and they tend to live on dirt roads far from medical help. Diabetes and hypertension are rampant.
Peralta started working toward addressing this need in 2017 when she had her college conduct a survey of high school students to ask whether they鈥檇 enroll at a St. John鈥檚 nursing school. The results were encouraging, which hardly came as a surprise. At the time, the country had only one nursing school, at the University of Belize, located in its sleepy capital, Belmopan. St. John鈥檚 sits a little over an hour away, in Belize City, the country鈥檚 only metropolis.聽
But how was Peralta going to open a nursing school? She had no connections to major donors鈥攑hilanthropy is minimal in her country鈥攁nd she knew very little about nursing. She did, however, have two things going for her: a long history of making the improbable happen, and a connection to 亚色影库, which has an internationally respected nursing program of its own.聽
Connell School Professors Colleen Simonelli (left) and Donna Cullinan (center) have led 亚色影库鈥檚 partnership with St. John鈥檚 College as the small Jesuit school has launched its new nursing program in Belize. The professors traveled to the college last year, along with 亚色影库 nursing students (from left) Vidisha Pandey '23, Aoife Goggin '23, Sinead Dunn '23, and Megan Borchick '23 (not pictured). Photo: Lee Pellegrini
In 2003, Peralta arrived for a high school teaching position at St. John鈥檚 College. She soon became the head of the college鈥檚 business department. After that, she was named a dean and then, finally, in 2015, the first-ever female president of St. John鈥檚, which was founded in 1887 by Jesuits. As president, she launched departments of music and civil engineering and also helped develop a software program that brought St. John鈥檚 paper-based documentation system into the digital age. Always, she said, she was driven by her deep Catholic faith. 鈥淚鈥檓 not the kind of person who goes to church five times a week to pray the rosary,鈥� she explained. 鈥淚 have too much energy for that. I like to serve people.鈥澛�
In 2020, Peralta was able to gain St. John鈥檚 admittance to the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, a network whose twenty-seven other schools are all situated in the US. That same year, at a gathering of the association鈥檚 presidents, she found herself eating lunch with 亚色影库 President William P. Leahy, SJ, whom she said she admires for 鈥渓iving the mission of the Society of Jesus. He creates opportunities for people who need it.鈥�
But even if Peralta was starstruck, she was also shrewd. Here she was, sitting next to the president of the university that鈥檚 home to the vaunted Connell School of Nursing. This was her moment, and in bright tones she told Fr. Leahy about her ambitions to launch a nursing school at St. John鈥檚. 鈥淲henever you鈥檙e ready,鈥� Fr. Leahy told Peralta, 鈥淚鈥檓 ready to help you.鈥澛�
By that time, Peralta had already had similar discussions with two professors at the Connell School, Colleen Simonelli, whom she鈥檇 met a year earlier, and Donna Cullinan. She knew that the professors had led nursing students on work trips to Haiti, Jamaica, and Chile. Now, with Fr. Leahy鈥檚 commitmen