Research; Early Stages

Hey Readers,

It’s OBVIOUSLY been a more than a long while since my last post. However, this has never left my mind. And what better awesome way to make an “Edinblog” comeback than this joyous holiday season.

So, without much ado, I am wishing you all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I wish us all light and love in our homes and our hearts.

Now, what has been happening with my studies?

My answer will be “Not so much” and “A lot”!

“Not so much” because my only mission this academic year is to undertake a great research thesis that would complete my eligibility to be awarded the Masters in Global Health and Infectious Diseases.

“A lot” because apart from my usual work and life activities (characteristic of a distance-learning student), undertaking a research is a monumental and interesting task on its own.

For now, I have a whole concept note written down and approved by my supervisor. However, I I am still in the very early stages of putting together thoughts on my thesis, reading up A WHOLE LOT on my research topic and interests, defining my focus and charting out my research plan. In fact, this early planning stage is perhaps the most important part for me as it sets the pace for the entire journey of undertaking a research.  

So far, I have learned that I must select a suitable topic that should naturally be in sync with my area of interests, and I must understand my topic areas inside out. I have also learned that I have to define and re-define and re-define my focus when necessary, and I must be ready to evolve and grow with this. I also need to understand and predict the relevance, usefulness and implementation of my research to scientific and social development. This is particularly important to me because I believe that the essence of research is development, and as a development advocate, research must meet the very need that birthed its existence in the first place.

I have gone through all these different stages - I am still going through some of them - but to a great extent and with the help of my supervisors, I have now found a very interesting angle to my research that I am excited to pursue.

My research topic is “Evaluation of Public Awareness of Zoonoses in Nigeria”. This is directly in line with my interests in zoonoses and health education/advocacy. And it is very interesting that I would be utilizing and synchronizing my platform MyAnimal,MyHealth (www.myanimalmyhealth.org) to carry out the research activities. It is clear to see that all things will always work together for good.

 So, though I fully intend to rest, sleep a lot, binge-watch TV shows and generally have fun with friends and family this holiday season, I am very eager to get back to work on this soon.

Have a beautiful day everyone!

Back to Studying; Dissertation Year begins!

Its back to school again. And because this is my final year (a.k.a, dissertation year), this deserves a thousand YAAAYS!!!

I welcome everyone – full-time and ODL – back to school again. I hope you all had an awesome break. I also want to congratulate all of my known colleagues who have now completed their ODL Masters program. To Yusuf, Ellen, Chaona, Salima, Ben, Velma, Lesley, Erin, Daniel, Sandile, Naveen, Imran and Frances … Congratulations to you all and I wish you the very best in your future endeavors.

I must admit that I had a really long blog-holiday (shall we call it blog-iday? lol)… 3 whole months of it. And through the whole duration of “blog-idays”, activities went on and milestones were achieved. Some of which are;

-        -      I successfully completed the courses Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), my last two courses for Year 2

-         -  The annual GHID Summer School was held in Uganda – which I sadly (much sadly) could not attend due to conflicting schedules in Nigeria

-          -  I received my qualifying final grades for the second year, hence I have now proceeded to my final (dissertation) year of study

As expected with the dissertation year, the main purpose is to undertake and complete a named peer-reviewed research thesis that would complete the requirements for an MSc qualification. As all my coursework have officially been completed, I would miss the usual discussions and interactions with my colleagues and course supervisors that we have all been used to for the past 2 sessions. However, I am really glad to be moving to next and final phase of study.

The dissertation is expected to be largely independent study undertaken by the student but with direct supervision by the allocated personal tutor and/or course supervisor.

Over the long break, I got to begin my dissertation journey after being contacted by my personal tutor on the matter. I then sent in short note based on my dissertation idea after which I had a series of Skype conversations with my supervisor, Dr. Kim. She was very helpful in guiding me through the process of idea validation and fine-tuning. I have now written and submitted a concept note towards my proposed dissertation and I am expecting further communication on this. I look forward to discussing with you all, the details of my dissertation after the concept note has been confirmed and I am given the go-ahead to undertake the research project.

This dissertation is very important to me not just because it is needed for me to complete my Masters program, but will give me a sure background and experience into scientific peer-reviewed research. (This is much needed as I intend to undertake a PhD). More importantly, it will provide useful information and data for a deeper understanding of my proposed subject area in my country, Nigeria.

So, I look forward to working on this over the course of the year, and being successful at it.

Wish me luck everyone and until next time!

Closer to the finish line...

Hello Everyone!

It’s a damp, restful Monday here in Lagos, Nigeria.. one of those Mondays you don't 'hate'!. 

Today, is a public holiday as we commemorate “Democracy day” in my country - the day Nigeria officially transitioned from a military government to a democratic government in 1999.  Also, I totally embrace the refreshing rainy seasons that are now finally here, it's been providing us with intermittent cool weather to balance the intensity of the sun.

So, I am excited to be completing my full Masters coursework this upcoming June. I just completed “Global Aid” last week and I am currently undertaking the final coursework “Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI)”. STI marks the end of my taught courses and my second year as an ODL Masters student at The University of Edinburgh. I would thereafter proceed to my research project which is already in discussions with my course coordinators.

Global Aid was a great course for me as it involved a lot of intellectual exposure outside my core area of interest in Global/Public Health. We were introduced to the current global aid models and we tackled various controversies (with good reasons) surrounding the current global aid models especially in developing countries. A lot of issues were debated upon – Has aid really been effective in its work goals? Should aid really continue? What are the more effective and viable alternatives to global aid that would have real impact on global sustainable development? Or how can aid delivery be better and more effective to reaching the people that really need them? These and many more issues were debated at length in our discussions as we utilized evidence-based information and drew experiences from our professional lives and respective countries. This was indeed intellectually stimulating and I am glad I undertook the course. 

Another funny story about the course though. As some of us may be aware, my country has been undergoing some financial and economic crisis in the last few months due to consistently falling global oil prices, government removal of fuel subsidy, increased fuel scarcity and fuel hike, subsequent poor power supply nationwide and other consequent issues. Anyway, these issues have had direct and indirect effects on everyone. So, inadvertently, the power/fuel scarcity issues has greatly affected my study time and ability to submit my essay assignments on time. So, for my final course essay for Global Aid, I submitted a little beyond the stipulated and immediately notified my course coordinator of my circumstance. I was given a “special circumstance” form to fill and this would be considered by exam coordinators to determine if late submission penalties would be implemented for me or not. So, I’m glad it has been resolved to an extent and I look forward to a positive outcome from the “special circumstance”.

So with my current course - “Sexually transmitted diseases”, I am looking forward improving my understanding of the subject. I have some considerable experience and interest in this course as I have been co-running a social impact project (called Project AHEAD) in adolescent health education in my community for about 2 years now. A key part of what we do in this project is to promote education and advocacy on sexual health issues. Therefore, I intend to expand my horizon greatly on this course and learn as much as I can that I can implement directly to my work here.

Before I round up on this, I must appreciate the support that I have gotten from the various relevant departments at The University of Edinburgh and from my ODL colleagues since I last announced my the inception of my blog - MyAnimal,MyHealth. I am committed to working in my capacity to promote global health and this support has greatly encouraged me in this regard.

Thank you all!

.... And until next time!

NTDs and the great news!

Hello Esteemed Readers!

Happy Holidays in arrears to everyone who celebrated the Easter Holidays. It’s been a restful and long weekend here in Nigeria thanks to the Easter holidays which ended just yesterday (Easter Monday).  

So, I am currently rounding up the course, “Neglected Tropical Diseases”. One thing I have enjoyed about the course so far is the engaging discussions between all course participants. I guess that because the previous course didn’t provide that opportunity for open discussions with colleagues, I had somewhat missed the discussion board and was happy to have it back. The discussions board has a way of stimulating your thoughts and opens you up to more learning than you would have had with just the basic lecture materials. Besides, sharing ideas and having (safe) arguments with your colleagues exposes you to different thoughts and experiences. And this gets better if you have a very diverse class like mine with students from almost every continent. As the course is rounding up and we are all required to submit our written assessments, I can presume that we are all currently neck-deep in finalizing our essays. This is one of those essays where you to choose a position (for or against) on a topic and you are required to defend your chosen stance with evidence-based critical thinking and justifiable reasons. . It seems to be much more work than I initially thought and I hope it works out just fine!

So in my previous post, I mentioned that I had some great news coming up. Well, here it is!!! (**drum-rolls**)

During the summer school (I know I never really did finish the summer school series, pardon me)… I was inspired to start up a virtual platform that would be a go-to resource place to educate the general public on relevant animal-human health topics in a simplified, interesting and engaging manner. As a veterinarian, I understand that in my country, there is so much ambiguity and ignorance on the aspect of animal health, animal welfare and zoonoses. This has led to abuse and quackery on so many levels, under-appreciation of quality and professional animal health care and on a larger scale, transmission of zoonoses. Undertaking this project had always been on my mind but I was inspired to take action on it when I had some related discussions with my some of my colleagues. I discussed my idea with Yusuf (my Nigerian colleague) and of course, things got fashioned out from there.

Well, after about 5 months of planning, challenges and maybe a little bit of procrastination, I finally launched the MyAnimal,MyHealth Network. This website is a virtual educational and public engagement platform that will provide information, learning and news on various clinical and public health issues and solutions to animal and human health in Nigeria. My amazing team and I decided to focus on Nigeria until we are sure we have the capacity to expand to other sub-Saharan countries.

The site launched officially on March 1 with accompanying social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter. It’s great to know that the network is growing and currently has a followership of over a thousand people on Facebook. I am happy with the engagement so far as we constantly receive some messages of encouragement and lots of messages on inquiry or questions based on our various topics of discussion. Of course, in establishing this momentum and order, we will continue to work on improving our structure and content for better effectiveness.  

So, just in case you are interested or you would like to support this initiative (which I would appreciate so much) you can visit the website (www.myanimalmyhealth.org) and subscribe to our posts. Better still, you can like our page on Facebook (MyAnimal,MyHealth) or simply follow us on Twitter @manimalmhealth.

Lest I forget, a fun part of starting up MyAnimal,MyHealth Network was having the opportunity to learn about building a website from scratch, all thanks to know-it-all Google. Due to a major disappointment from a professional who was supposed to build the site (one of the “challenges” I encountered), I pushed myself to learn something new and totally unfamiliar – building a website. It took me a lot of errors, consumed time and internet data (Oh yeah... Internet is quite expensive here) but I’m so glad I did! 

I am grateful and look forward to greater things with this.

So, off to continue with my written assessment and then myanimalmyhealth.org! 

A plus tard … Ciao!

From PCM to NTDs…

Hello Dear Readers,

It’s already a very sunny morning here in Lagos, Nigeria. I should mention that it has been unbearably hot so for a while now and in fact, I saw an amusing post on a friend’s Facebook wall recently which read: 

  

Dear Sun,

You are still the hottest on the planet. No one is competing with you.

Concerned Nigerians

Yeah, it’s been that hot and I really look forward to the rainy season.

So, I just completed my course on “Project Cycle Management” (PCM) and I enjoyed every bit of it. Most importantly, I learned so much that I can now utilize for all of my work and projects. I learned both theoretically and practically, which I think is a great and effective way to transfer knowledge on this course. I got a proper introduction into the “business” of development aid especially the relationship between donor countries, partner countries and international development organization. I learned the essence of evaluating of aid effectiveness, the importance of effective partnerships between donor and partner countries, project ownerships and capacity development for sustainable development. 

For the core practical aspect, I learned first-hand the applicability of log frames and budgeting including a basic foundation in monitoring and evaluation. The group assignment was a great tool for learning these things as my group and I worked across locations to complete an actual proposal for a 3-year Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program. Needless to say, I had a wonderful team to work with and we all learned from each other in a lot of ways. We communicated majorly through Skype and despite the enormous differences in time, distance and our busy schedules; we completed the assignment in good time. Overall, I believe we all did a great job with our contributions and team work.

I just started another course on Neglected Tropical diseases (NTDs). I selected this course as one of my electives because of its core relevance to my country, Nigeria. As a developing country with embattling issues such as relatively high level of poverty and health inequalities, these set of diseases are encountered regularly. So, you can understand my choice and enthusiasm to learn on the course.

Now, in other news...... I have some great and exciting NEWS that I will be announcing shortly….

Happy New Year, Happy New Semester.

BONNE ANEE!!!!!

Yeah that was me attempting to show off a little French. I have been taking French lessons and making use of the Duolingo Language App; highly recommended if you wish to learn any European language. But I digress….

Seriously, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!!! 

Its 2016 and we made it! That’s a whole lot to be grateful for. 

I hope you all enjoyed your holidays. Here in Nigeria, the holiday period seemed longer than most because the holidays and weekends were all clustered together giving us five continuous work-free days. Let me explain – In case you didn’t know, Nigeria’s two major religions are Islam and Christianity. Now, for the first time ever, (since I was born anyway), Ed-il-Malud, the Muslim celebration for the birth of Mohammed, preceded Christmas day on Thursday 24^th December. Subsequently, Friday 25^th December was Christmas Day and Saturday was Boxing Day. Now the norm in Nigeria is to move any celebration that falls on a weekend (Saturday and Sunday) to the next working day (usually a Monday) - which was exactly what happened! Throughout the holidays, I did a lot of cooking, hosting of visiting extended family members (in the family house), meeting up with friends and binge-watched all 7 seasons of “Modern Family”. Watching Modern Family was a time well spent – I laughed mostly, got misty-eyed sometimes and learned some life lessons.

So, 2016, how is it going to be? What do you expect?

Well, for me, I expect to find happiness in whatever I do, wherever I go and in my life aspirations. Finding happiness and fulfillment and aiming for a better ME will be my key drivers for my decision-making. And as I believe in God, I recognize that I am human but I expect and pray to always do His will and be a blessing to humanity. Life is short and can be silly, but Life can be happy just as much. Ensure you DO YOU!

So I “resumed school” officially yesterday and I was literarily bombarded with the loads of academic work waiting for me already. I am now starting a new 10-credit course called “Introduction to Project Cycle Management”. As much as I felt bombarded, I also felt ready to dig in and learn as much as I can because this is one of my most career-relevant courses. Also, it was interesting to find out that as part of the course activities, my colleagues and I have been divided into teams of 3 and 4 to work together on a graded group project. Interestingly, this group project perfectly imitates the situation that usually exists in real-life core international development practice where time-zone difference of respective team members is common and virtual correspondence is necessary. So, I guess this is quite fitting in this circumstance as an ODL student. BIG cheers to a new year and a new academic semester and I look forward to another time of learning and capacity building as an ODL student. Also, I wish you all the best in your academics, careers, families and personal life. Expect great things this year and most importantly, expect to live happy!

P.S - Don’t be surprised if my next post would be entirely written in French (LOL!)

Have a happy 2016!

Hello Everyone!

Today started on a cold dry note that comes with the harmattan season in Nigeria. As usual, the weather is cold (for a tropical environment) and dry, the environment is very dusty and excitement is building up everywhere for the upcoming end-of-year holidays. As expected, the Christmas/New Year holidays mean a lot to people all over the world and based on background, environment, culture and personal experiences, it entails varying activities. Well for me, apart from the usual colors, ceremonies, fanfare and religious activities, the Christmas holidays mean lots of exciting reunions with friends and families. There are parties, get-togethers, church programs, live concerts, road trips, picnics, short vacations and other social activities that keep you afloat and refreshed till you are sorry when it is all over.  I think that for most Nigerians, this period is almost an equivalent of the summer break in the western world. Therefore, these holidays are annual robust experiences that I always look forward to and that I am grateful for.

As an ODL student, the holidays mean ….. well …. HOLIDAYS! Currently, I have completed my semester courses and I presume that most full time students should be currently rounding up with their exams now.

This session, studying has indeed been quite exciting and engaging. My last two courses were basically focused on “Zoonotic diseases” with topics skittering around global efforts at zoonotic disease control. As my colleagues and I (together with our course supervisor) discussed on these topics together we were introduced to a globally relevant topic that has been trending for a while now in development circles. Just in case you seemed to have missed it, I introduce to you to the Sustainable Development Goals, also known in its short form as SDGs. The SDGs is a new global development agenda with a target timeline for 2030 that builds on the Millennium Development Goals (which ends this year). The goals spread its focuses on various key pillars of development that need to be addressed in our present world. These issues as shown in the diagram below include health, poverty alleviation, economic development, inequalities, environmental protection, climate change, global security etc.

Most of our class discussions on SDGs centered around the 3rd SDG as that goal had the core relevance to our studies and profession in global health. Generally, these courses gave all of us the opportunity to contribute thoughts, experiences and suggestions on the SDGs and how to bring about its effective implementation. Based on our course discussions on the SDGs, we all agreed that it is necessary for the SDGs to move from simple rhetoric to core implementation in all sectors and communities worldwide.

Therefore, as we go about our daily lives, this is a global wake-up call for everyone irrespective of profession, socioeconomic status, race and religion to work cohesively and stay united in the quest to positively sustain our world to secure our future. This unity is even more essential in light of the recent global threats to human security which if not tackled wisely, might lead to a structural breakdown of civilization and have a negative ripple effect on other pillars of development. Therefore, our unity in purpose, efforts and actions towards holistic sustainable development is necessary and we all need to consciously lay aside our differences to work out vision 2030 towards our safety and well-being. To maintain this for ourselves and our future generations, our health must be promoted, environment must be sustained, our economies must be developed and our lives must be secured.
Vision SDG 2030 might seem like an over-ambitious, over-arching goal, but it can be achieved with each person's CONSCIOUS ACTON STEPS.

As we enjoy the holidays and spread cheer and goodwill, let this guide our thoughts towards the new year goals. For real, let each of us add at least one SDG to our resolutions and goals and ACT on them, who knows how much we might achieve?

Happy Holidays in advance!

Cheers!!!