Tendai Polite Chibarabada, WaterNet
The BRECcIA Summer School was an unmeasurable experience that words cannot simply describe. For myself, it was the first time to meet all the team members which was really great to put faces to names. Malawi was the perfect location to conduct the Summer School in order to expose early career researchers to drylands. The Summer School was packed with activities that were all relevant to our backgrounds.
At first, we were exposed to the communities and for the first time in most of our careers, we were asked to formulate our own research questions that we would pursue for the duration of the Summer School. We had total control of our research which l really enjoyed and was also happy that the senior researchers were around to assist when we were struggling. I loved the Chankutha village of Malawi, they were welcoming and allowed us to conduct our research in their village
I am a bio physical scientist who had never been exposed to social research and had a tendency to underestimate it. The Summer School allowed the team to formulate interdisciplinary research methods and exposed me to social research methods, taking me out of my comfort zone and driving me to appreciate the importance of each discipline and addressing research in an interdisciplinary way. Thank you BRECcIA for this opportunity and I look forward to further training on interdisciplinary research.