Eleni’s Placement at BecA
This is an overview of my internship so far working as a Science Communications assistant at the BecA-ILRI Hub, at Nairobi, Kenya.
This project overall is to work towards providing support in streamlining communication activities for the Africa Bioscience Challenge Fund (ABCF) with emphasis on the BecA-JIC partnership
Activities include:
- Designing a module on science communication for diverse audiences to be incorporated in workshops
- Conducting training for current ABCF research fellows on various aspects of science communication (For example use of social media and poster design)
- Developing a communications/editorial calendar for the JIC-BecA partnership 2017
- Supporting development of the ABCF alumni portal
- Recording and reporting (blog articles, news stories and photography) from workshops conducted under the BecA-JIC partnership
So far I have been delivering diverse communications material for the AfriPlantSci course on Plant Metabolism for Improved Nutrition and Health in Arusha, Tanzania. I created photos-profiles with the bios of every participant, lecturer and organiser. These were being uploaded on the AfriPlantSci Twitter page regularly, along with quotes and outputs of every single day of the course, to allow networking liaisons.
I also attended the launch of the Newton-Utafiti Fund in Kenya, where I communicated with various scientists from Sub-Saharan Africa and the UK, on matters like building scientific partnerships focused on the development of SSA.
One of the most rewarding activities I had the pleasure to do, was writing an article for two of the ABCF Fellows here in BecA, for Women’s International day, where I got to meet two incredible women scientists. The article was uploaded at the BecA-ILRI Hub blog and got very good responses.
Recently, I had the chance to collect communications material for the Sustainable Intensification of Agricultural Systems in sub-Saharan Africa workshop, led by BBSRC. This workshop had a very positive feedback and all the attendees committed immediately to the networking activities. At the same time, I benefited greatly from interacting with a plethora of UK and African scientists with years of experience in different fields and I got to see how funding programmes proceed from individual brainstorming to group consensus.
I, also, participated at the 1st Africa wide Post Harvest Congress & Exhibition where we communicated the BecA activities, primarily through the ABCF Program, to tackle food waste and postharvest spoilage.
Currently, I am working on writing some articles regarding the events I attended, that I will share with BBSRC and SIRN (Sustainable Intensification Research Network), commenting on the output from a science communicator’s view. Also, I am working on designing a Presentation Skills workshop for the ABCF Fellows here in BecA, where I will show them techniques on how to communicate their science more effectively and how to engage the public.