IDN Student Profiles

What’s it like to travel to developing nations and conduct hands-on research? While each experience is unique, we have asked past recipients of the IDN-CIPA scholarship to tell us a little about their experience. You can read their stories below: 

Cynthia Adi 

Critical Mass Representation in Uganda

In 2009, Cynthia Adi conducted field work in Uganda where she studied women's land rights and the impact that female parliamentarians have on the human rights of women in Uganda. Her research is titled Critical Mass Representation in Uganda

Adi writes, "Critical mass is a theory, found in feminist political thought,  argues that the interests of women cannot be effectively promoted until women are at least 30% of the state legislature."

Adi's internship with the Uganda, NGO the Centre for Women in Governance (CEWIGO), enabled her to form crucial relationships, attend workshops with female Ugandan politicians, network with the Uganda Women's Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) and arrange a number of interviews with female parliamentarians.

 

Among her findings Adi concluded that, "Female parliamentarians in Uganda face a number of challenges, such as limited education, patriarchy, and familial responsibilities, which hinder their ability to successfully advocate for the rights of women in Uganda. Despite the challenges that they face, female parliamentarians have been able to secure some gains in women's land rights since the adoption of the 1995 constitution.  The best example of their success is the 1998 land act where female parliamentarians successfully fought to have a clause requiring consent of spouses for the sale of family land."

The recent return to multi-party democracy in Uganda has had a negative impact upon the ability of female parliamentarians to work together, because the women are forced to "tow the party line," and as a result, women's issues have been sidelined."  Adi recommends that, "female parliamentarians and NGOs working with female politicians form non-partisan groups through which they can reach a general consensus on what rights women in Uganda deserve and work through their respective parties to ensure that women's issues are on the agenda of all parties"

Every organization that Adi worked with in the course of her research received a copy of her report. In the report she lists a number of challenges that hinder Ugandan women's ability to successfully advocate for their rights. "It is my hope that these organizations will work together to address the challenges that female politicians in Uganda face."

Rebecca Altman

Interdisciplinary Studies, Asian studies and Global Health

Rebecca Altman spent her fall 2008 semester in Vietnam researching the effects of food insecurity and nutrition on the country’s women.

“Initially, I wanted to do something on fast food, but I learned that it wasn’t very prevalent,” says Rebecca. Instead, she studied the cultural influence of iron fortification on fish sauce – a staple of the Vietnamese diet. To address widespread nutritional deficiencies, especially the high incidence of anemia, the Vietnamese government uses television campaigns to promote the consumption of iron-fortified fish sauce.

Rebecca studied the effectiveness of these campaigns are in raising awareness about nutrition by interviewing three groups of women: rural poor, urban working class and urban middle class. Although she expected awareness to be higher among the urban women, she found that it was actually higher among rural and low income women. “I think that the pace of life contributes,” she says. “Most are rice farmers, which involves coming in from the rice patty for a few hours during the afternoon.” At home, these women are able to see the commercials and have the time to talk with friends, which creates more awareness. By contrast, women in the city have a more hectic lifestyle, which doesn’t allow them to watch television during the day.

           

Rebecca acknowledges that there were many challenges to conducting research in an unfamiliar country. “In the U.S. people are attuned to interviewing. In Vietnam, it’s a foreign concept. They don’t know why someone would want to know about their lives.” She also struggled with trying to arrange interviews and keep to a schedule in a culture that’s much less focused on time. She credits her advisor, a researcher at the National Institute of Nutrition in Ha Noi, Vietnam, with helping her manage the logistical and cultural issues, as well as for enriching her research. 

“I’m very grateful for the scholarship. I loved being abroad and I loved the experience. I grew in ways that I don’t think I realized until I got back.”

Thomas Kraemer

Finance and Organization Management

Thomas Kraemer studied in Cape Town, South Africa in the Fall of 2007 where he researched urban forms of microlending. 

“I was interested in microfinance for a while before I applied for the IDN-CIPA scholarship,” says Thomas. “I had read a lot about rural forms of lending and was interested in understanding how it was practiced in urban areas.”
 
During apartheid, many citizens had no access to capital and therefore, to way to use their skills to start small businesses. Today, microfinance has become a large industry in South Africa, with everything from plumbing to carpentry to roadwork financed through microlending. 

For his research, Thomas interviewed five different microfinance institutions in Cape Town and was surprised to learn that most were doing a poor job of managing risk and, as a result, were struggling to survive. He looked at what the successful firms were doing differently and discovered that in addition to charging higher rates of interest, they took a consultative role in the businesses to which they extended loans. These firms held weekly meetings with their clients, discussed spending plans and ensured there is a well laid out business plan. “Having a close relationship with the client seemed to be a good way to ensure there was greater chance of payback on the loan.”

Thomas graduated from Emory in Fall 2007 and today works for The Federalist Society in Washington, D.C. He credits his semester abroad with not only helping him understand development economics, but helping him better understand U.S. economic policy as well. 

“I took away from my experience the fact that disparities in wealth can be a major problem in countries like South Africa and we have to think about those sorts of problems in our own country. What’s the gap between rich and poor and what are the social implications? Do we keep that gap from growing or would it be better to be more focused on economic growth? I looked at that problem and thought it would be better for us to understand everything about it to try to get the best idea about what it is we need to do to keep people most prosperous.”

Kimberly Quinn

Major: African Studies, Minor: Global Health, Culture and Society; Community Building and Social Change 

Kimberly Quinn spent her Spring 2008 semester in Uganda where she studied development and researched how women’s needs, concerns and desires were incorporated into the planning of water resources.

Kimberly’s program included a two month internship with the HEWASA (Health through Water and Sanitation) Programme, an indigenous NGO supported by the Catholic Diocese of Fortportal. The organization builds improved water sources and  trains committees within the community to manage them. “I did a lot of shadowing of their staff and participated in field visits,” she says. “In the last two or three weeks, I did my own research, conducting interviews with organization staff, water sector professionals and local leaders. I also did 11 focus groups with beneficiary communities.”

Kimberly focused on how women’s participation in the planning and development of community-based water resources affects the functionality. As she traveled to different villages interviewing residents, she found the data gathering process much more challenging than she expected. "In each village I would visit there were local leaders that I needed to meet, speak to and sometimes pay to conduct research effectively. I never anticipated all the people I would have to shake hands with and introduce myself to.”

Communicating was also difficult as the local language she had learned was different from that being spoken in the villages. Initially, she was assigned a male translator, but she was concerned that he might prevent the women from speaking freely and requested a female translator. However, the female translator’s English skills were not as strong and Kimberly had to greatly simplify her questions. 

During her time in Uganda, Kimberly learned that managing change was important to being successful. Among the community members Kimberly spoke to, the issue of how water user fees was collected for water sources was a hot topic, but it didn’t exactly fit with Kimberly’s agenda, so she reset her expectations. “While my research participants had only a fleeting interest in discussing women’s traditional roles in water collection, my chosen topic, they passionately discussed the importance of the Village Health and Water Source Committees and the challenges of collecting water user fees.”

Despite the challenges, Kimberly was thrilled with the experience. “This was my first trip out of North America and my first time to the developing world. I loved it. I can’t wait to go back to visit my homestay family and conduct further research."