Barbara Boles-Davis

Barbara is a graduate of St. Joseph’s School of Nursing – Hamilton and most of her career was spent in the operating room at St. Joseph’s. She also worked at the Portage la Prairie Hospital, in Manitoba, and the Halifax Infirmary, now the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Complex.

Barbara became interested in the Developing World in 1994, when a colleague suggested that she try a third world medical project – thereby combining her professional skills with her love for Latin America.

Her first mission was in 1993 to Zaruma, Ecuador – a gold mining town. Since then she has volunteered on 31 medical and non-medical missions in fourteen different countries: Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, India, Thailand, Nepal, Swaziland,  Malawi, Rwanda, and Zambia.

These missions included: trauma, orthopaedics, gynaecology, plastic surgery, ophthalmology, dentistry, vaccinations and public health teaching.

She has also been involved in a unique teaching program at the University Hospital of the State of Haiti in Port-au-Prince.

Barbara’s first trip to Peru was in October 1997, specifically to visit Machu Picchu. Her first volunteer trip was in September 2001 to Arequipa, Peru. She has now been to Peru a total of 14 times, 12 of which were volunteer trips both medical and non-medical. She has travelled extensively throughout Peru, connecting with its people and its places. Barbara is fluent in Spanish.

She served as  a  member of the Board of Directors of Heart-Links, a Canadian  organization dedicated to the empowerment of women in the Zana Valley of Peru.  She was a member of its Peru Projects committee, and now serves on  its Work Awareness Trip Committee.

Barbara has done numerous presentations to schools, hospitals, church groups, Rotary and other clubs, and on the Provincial level, to the Ontario Operating Room Nurses Association.