GRÓ Alumni Event in Kampala
About 30 alumni from all four of the GRÓ programmes gathered in the Icelandic embassy in Kampala for an alumni event on the 1st of March. Some of the alumni are retired and participated in the programme almost 30 years ago, while others were among the people graduating last year. This was the first time that alumni from all four GRÓ programmes gathered in Uganda.
The meeting was organised in connection with the visit of the Director General of the GRÓ centre for Capacity Development, Sustainability and Societal Change, Ms. Nína Björk Jónsdóttir, to Uganda. The aim of the visit was two-fold, to meet with alumni in the country and GRÓ‘s partners, and to have meeting with UNESCO to strengthen cooperation between GRÓ and UNESCO in the region, as GRÓ is a Category 2 Centre working under the auspices of UNESCO.
About 30% of GRÓ‘s alumni have come from Eastern Africa and all of the four programmes have been very active in Uganda. In total 109 Ugandans have attended the 5-6 month training in Iceland, three have finished a Masters degree on a GRÓ scholarship and four a PhD. Eleven short courses have been held in the country.
Ms. Þórdís Sigurðardóttir, Head of Mission at the Embassy of Iceland in Kampala welcomed the alumni to the event. Nína Björk talked about GRÓ and the interest of strenghtening the GRÓ alumni network, Ms. Rosie Agoi, the Secretary General of the National Commision of Uganda to UNESCO talked about the work of the Commission and Mr. Charles Draecabo, the head of the UNESCO Kampala office, talked about UNESCO‘s work in Uganda and in Eastern African.
The alumni presented themselves and explained what they had studied during their time in Iceland and where they are currently working. Their topics of research while in Iceland included improving shell life of fish products, combatting trafficking of women and girls, the relevance of wetland economic valuation, improving economic status of women with disabilities in Kampala slums and geothermal borehole technology. Dr. Godfrey Kawooya Kubiriza, FTP fellow in 2009-10 and that finished a Ph.D. in Aquaculture Science on a FTP scholarship in 2017, chaired the discussions of the alumni.
The discussions were very lively and the fellows had many ideas on how they could work together, learn from each other and provide approaches for long term cooperation, both locally and regionally and even worldwide. Different ways of sharing their knowledge and research, was also discussed. Many opportunities of working with UNESCO were identified and the alumni decided to continue to work together to explore the best way forward, including forming a local GRÓ alumni chapter in Uganda. Following the event all GRÓ alumni in Uganda will be contacted in order to ensure that everyone that wants to take part in these GRÓ related activites is included.
