11 – 14 September 2023 I Arusha, Tanzania
Roughly 50 Participants followed the open call for the CRC-TRR Future Rural Africa’s Summer School 2023 in Arusha. Participants included members of the Collaborative Research Centre as well as students from various East-African Universities. The Aga Khan University co-hosted the event and most of the session were held at the Aga Khan University Campus in Arusha.
Apart from team building, networking and fostering academic exchange by bringing together key actors from the fields of academia and other sectors, summer schools are an important part of capacity building. The sessions, many of which are based around certain academic skills, help young researchers to attain the tools that they need to further their research and their academic careers. This year’s summer school had the theme “Into the Open – Sharing Knowledge and Reflecting on Research Relationships”. An emphasis was placed on presenting and exnternally communicating research results, ethics in academia and human environment interactions.
Journalist Samy Salwani led a session teaching participants how to share their research results with the media and how to best utilize and navigate various media channels. Furthermore, CRC researcher Theo Aalders from project C03 Green Futures collaborated with Kenyan graphic novelist Daniel Muli, and visual artist Nayambura Kariuki (Nash) to outline the advantages of communicating research output through graphic novels.
During an excursion to Mukuru Tented Camp, managed by the local community in Uwure Village, Northern Tanzania, participants received in depth knowledge of community ownership, conservation-oriented income generation, gender & sustainable change while the NGO OIKOS East Africa shared their experiences in rangeland management and restoration in the area.
This years summer school was visited by many early career researchers from Tanzania, Kenya and beyond. One of them is Faraja Luhanda, a PhD student at The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST). Click here to read about his experience as an Applied Mathematics PhD-Student at the Future Rural Africa Summer School 2023 in Arusha.