Young Scientists Tanzania

The eXhIBITIon

YoUnG scIenTIsTs TanZanIa

YoUnG scIenTIsTs TanZanIa

a good idea is a good idea no matter where you plant it and this has proven to be true of the BT Young scientist & Technology exhibition. a duplicate of the all-Irish exhibition has been successfully transplanted to Dar es salaam and Young scientists Tanzania has just completed its second year.

“If I close my eyes I could have been in the RDS, the buzz was exactly the same and the children want to tell you about their projects and they are so excited,” says Tony Scott, co-founder of the original Dublin event. “We have taken seeds and sowed them in there and they are now tending the crops and watching them grow and it can only be good for the students,” he says.

Young Scientist Tanzania was floated as an idea in 2009 at NUI Maynooth. It arose during a meeting of the Combat Diseases of Poverty Consortium, a group in Maynooth working against poverty in east Africa. The Consortium’s co-chairs, Dr. Jamie Saris and Dr. Noel Murphy went to Scott to see if such a radical, unexpected idea might work and he was immediately receptive.

Government officials from Tanzania came to visit the exhibition and were impressed and the project got underway. “We talked and I put down what they needed to do and the first thing was to go out and find sponsors to support the project financially,” says Scott. “They came back with backing from the Pearson Foundation and Radar Education in Tanzania. We then started to put the programme together.” The project had to be cleared by the board of the Young Scientist Exhibition, but this was readily given along with all of the logistics behind the event, for example the application forms, judges’ marking sheets and of course all the methodology of running it. It even came down to the design of the stands used at the RDS and a unique Young Scientist Tanzania logo provided under licence and modelled on the one used in Ireland. “They then adapted all of this for use in Tanzania. We didn’t want them having to reinvent the wheel,” says Scott.

There was much to-ing and fro-ing to make it all happen, and Scott was full of praise for government support body Irish Aid. “They have been wonderful in helping us to do this, and also Fionnuala Gilsenen, the Irish ambassador there. Government aid has been the rock on which it was based.”

The Consortium at Maynooth had a constant stream of staff and supporters travelling to Dar Es Salaam to set up networks with teachers there and getting schools to enter. The logistics for the organisers but also the schools are a considerable challenge, says Scott. “Tanzania is 11 times the size of Ireland with 10 times the population of Ireland. You can reach Dublin from most parts of Ireland in three hours, but reaching Dar Es Salaam from a distant school might be a 30 hour bus journey. We had to get support and teachers out into the regions where there might not be computers and wi-fi connections.”

The first Young Scientist Tanzania event in 2012 had 95 projects from 18 of the country’s 21 regions, and the 2013 exhibition attracted 60 projects. The lower number was based on a lack of funding to help get the students up to the exhibition, but the organisers have found fresh backers willing to support the project. “Next year we have new sponsors including British Gas, and Irish Aid is there, and that is going to make a huge difference in so many ways. It will fund people to go around the schools and give help and advice,” says Scott. “Something truly unique and important has developed in Tanzania,” says Saris of the Consortium. Tanzania is up and running and other countries are now interested in setting up Young Scientist exhibitions including Uganda and Kenya. In some ways it has been a difficult journey says Murphy of the Consortium but one that has delivered something important. “By any measure, Young Scientist Tanzania is a remarkable achievement for all concerned.”

Meanwhile the winners of the Young Scientist Tanzania 2013 were Jafari Ndagula and Fidel Samwel from Ilongero Secondary School in Singida. They won with a project entitled “A Drip Irrigation System Using Recycled Materials”, a project the judges praised as combining both technical and scientific content while dealing with a real issue, water shortages in their home region.

Their win means they will travel to Dublin in January 2014 to attend the 50th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition at the RDS.

2012 Tanzania Young Scientists, Aisha Nduku, Monica Shinina and Nengai Moses with the 2013 BT Young Scientists, Ciara Judge, Emer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow from Kinsale Community School, Co. Cork.