Windesheim student Jurriaan Peters (23) is in Uganda for his internship, aiming to help increase food security in rural Uganda. He is reporting to the win’ about his experiences abroad.
This year is going to be the most exciting one in my study so far! This autumn I’m leaving to Africa to execute a project aiming to help Ugandan farmers increase their farming yields.
The last two months, I’ve been working together with my project team on gathering knowledge to write project & research proposals for our time in Bukomansimbi (3 hours south-east of Kampala).
During our first meeting with our client from Connect2Uganda (the NGO we’re working for) he asked us what we expected for this project, and what we would like to help develop in Uganda. By then we were still under the impression that our assignment was already developed for us.
We were mistaken…
It turned out that these weeks were used to orientate ourselves by reading research papers & other advisory reports about the Bukomansimbi district & agricultural projects.
After these weeks we were finally ready to start writing the needed proposals for our project. While writing these proposals we’ve stumbled on the issue that the more you learn about African food insecurity, the more you realise you don’t understand, yet. However, it does keep you motivated to learn even more!
Our research is focused on gathering more data of the local situation to be able to write an advisory report on how a school can best contribute to the implementation of an agricultural intensification project.
On the 10th of October we were invited for a dinner at our project clients home where we met our Ugandan host. During this delicious dinner we were invited to try some Ugandan rum, which is served in a little plastic bag, it actually doesn’t taste bad! Culture shock number one is survived, while still in the Netherlands.
The 1st of November I’m flying to Uganda, and I couldn’t be more excited.
I look forward to keep you updated!
Jurriaan Peters is a third year student Global project & change management
