Our Mission & History

Gretta’s challenge seems incomprehensible. But sadly, it is predictive as well.

The Gretta Foundation’s mission is to provide in‐country nursing education to impoverished persons living in disease‐burdened nations while bolstering depleted healthcare workforces and improving patient care and outcomes.

The Gretta Foundation was founded in 2007 by Meg Styles in honor of her mother, the late Dr. Margretta Madden Styles – or Gretta, as she was known to her fellow nurses.

Gretta was a nurse scholar renowned globally as an international leader in nursing education, regulation, and credentialing. (CV)

Gretta wholeheartedly loved her profession and her fellow nurses. To Gretta, nurses were “The most honorable,” and we at The Gretta Foundation faithfully and fully embrace her conviction.

To stress the importance and indispensable nature of her beloved nursing profession, Gretta would make the powerfully persuasive challenge:

“Imagine a world without persons who know what nurses know; who believe as nurses believe; who do what nurses do; who have the effect that nurses have upon the health of individuals, families and nations; who enjoy the trust that nurses enjoy… Imagine a world without nurses.”

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

The Gretta Foundation’s nursing scholarship strategy is based on four important principles:

  1. Nursing scholarships are granted to persons most vulnerable and disadvantaged.
  2. Nursing education empowers persons by providing the tools to enter into an indispensable and remunerative profession.
  3. A nurse’s contribution to humanity through a career of care and cure is incalculable.
  4. By increasing the nursing workforce globally, there is greater hope to stem the relentless advance of diseases like HIV and improve patient care worldwide.