At the opening ceremonies of the 2nd Asia Pacific Nursing Congress held in Sydney, Australia in November 2004, I rose when the Philippines delegation was called. Surprisingly, I was the only one from my country.
Not until mid-afternoon, when somebody tapped my back and whispered, "there are two Filipinos here". She introduced herself. That instant made me feel a bit more comfortable.
Dr. Cindy Leigh, RN, PhD, FRCNA was at the time the Head of School of Nursing, Australian Catholic University at the MacKillop campus in North Sydney.
Three days after the congress, and a brief visit to her School made my first Australian trip a memorable one. At the time, I saw simulated rooms at ACU and the student class was so diverse with student population coming from China, South Pacific islands, among others.
The beginning of a professional collaboration has started. Email exchanges took place.
In January 2008, Cindy and I met at an international nursing conference in Manila, Philippines. As both of us were busy doing some professional networking, we also agreed that we would do something for nursing in the near future. After that she emailed me, and asked about my thoughts on ways to help nursing in Mindanao —the 2nd biggest island in the Philippines. The latter is in the southern part of the Philippines where I currently work and live . Mindanao is home to more than 20 million people for a land area similar to Tasmania. It is host to more than 90 nursing schools out of the country’s total of 470 nursing schools. Most of the Australian aid support is concentrated to Mindanao over the last decade.
So the following year, I twitted the idea of inviting her to keynote our 2nd National Nursing Research Conference held in Cagayan de Oro City in November 2009. Spending her own money, she flew to the city and keynoted the event. Also, it was there that we did a workshop together on "Ethical Considerations in Nursing Research". We had great discussion time covering potential engagements on nursing education and research . We thought of doing a research capacity mapping in southern Philippines. This we did earlier this year.
Last month, Cindy came over to speak in two national conferences in Iloilo and Cebu cities. These are two cities in the middle (Visayas) islands of the Philippines. She brought along two colleagues from the School of Nursing, Australian Catholic University to serve as significant resource persons in our conferences. Again, as we could not afford to pay their airfares, they paid for themselves. A very generous act.
In all these conferences, we were fortunate that Cindy gave her time, did very good presentations and was so helpful in giving advice to nursing colleagues. Moreover, she was able to encourage her University colleagues to join her. Truly, an exciting thing to see when more faculty members from her School can collaborate with Philippine nurse academics and volunteer to come to the Philippines soon.
In her many roles, Cindy has always demonstrated a careful attention to detail and has reflected a deep concern for her professional colleagues who work where available resources are limited such as in the Philippines. Along with mentoring and supporting colleagues from Australia and the Philippines, Cindy has taught students and educated all with her strong, gentle spirit and her infinite determination. Cindy's life and career reflect the best of Australian nursing.
I still can remember when she said, "I have to help my countrymen in the best way I can". Surely, she finds joy in helping them.
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Prof. Faustino Jerome Babate is an STTI Ambassador for Brunie, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines and an active member of the International Academic Nursing Alliance.