These grants are awarded on a competitive basis to doctors who exercise their profession in remote or underprivileged areas with problems of access to training. The grants allow them to follow the PROFAM (Continuous Distance Learning Program for Family, Ambulatory and Community Health) course given by the Hospital Italiano in Buenos Aires for two years. The course provides access to practical tools which are up-to-date and based on reliable scientific evidence concerning the management of the most prevalent health problems.

The course is split into nine subject-oriented modules of text material which come with self-evaluation material designed and edited to enable distance students to learn and assimilate it easily. There is an IT-based support system called the Virtual Campus which works as a classroom involving all the members of the virtual education community (both teachers and students). This considerably reduces the sense of isolation which distance learners often experience. Information about the 3rd competition will be communicated in April 2008.

One hundred grants will be awarded on a competitive basis to nursing professionals as part of an agreement convened with the Family Medicine Foundation of the Hospital Italiano of Buenos Aires. They will be able to improve their skills on the PROFAM NURSING course (University Distance Learning Nursing Course for Family and Community Health). Information about the 2nd competition will be communicated in June 2008.

The nursing sector in Argentina has specific qualitative and quantitative issues with its human resources, a real problem for both the population and the health system in general. This 6-month course, which involves two modules and lectures through the virtual classroom system, aims to develop skills for looking after patients in primary care, broaden the scope of competences for the role of nursing in primary healthcare, and reduce the technological knowledge gap for health professionals, promoting access to information and communications technology.

This is a 3-day training course provided to teachers about the importance of playing and the creative process, which the Bunge y Born Foundation has been providing since 1995 and one which is much-sought after by schools in Greater Buenos Aires, for whom the course was designed.
The program is aimed at facilitating the use of games and play as a teaching resource and at providing a games library for each school taking part, as well as at stimulating teachers to take full advantage of these resources with their pupils. The seminar, which is sponsored by the General Directorate of Schools of the Province of Buenos Aires, was audited in 2007 by an external consultancy, which evaluated it as extremely efficient in achieving its objectives.

The Mario Hirsch Grant was set up in 2007 to offer training to medical professionals. It is awarded by competition to a doctor from outlying rural areas in Argentina and includes a full in-house clinical residence for those wishing to specialize in hematology. The professional must complete his or her residence at the hematology section of FUNDALEU (a well-known institution which provides integrated healthcare to patients suffering from leukemia and other types of oncological blood illnesses). The grant covers the academic and accommodation costs in Buenos Aires for the full two years required to complete the specialization.


The grant is maintained by a generous donation made by Mrs Elena de Olazábal de Hirsch.