Freyja Oddsdottir is Research and Communications Support Officer in the GSDRC. She is responsible for communicating research outputs to partner organisations, implementing professional development activities, and maintaining the GSDRC’s online library.
For the past couple of years, the IDD has organised a field research trip to assist IDD Masters students with the logistics of field research, which is an optional component of their MSc degree. Last year, the destination was Kerala in South India. In June this year, a group of 16 students travelled to Nairobi, Kenya, along with Dr Jonathan Fisher and Freyja Oddsdottir, where they stayed for three weeks to conduct field research for their dissertation.
The research topics were as different as they were many, ranging from affordable housing to police corruption and the LGBT community in Nairobi. Each student organised their own agenda depending on their research interests, and their interviewees included NGO staff, politicians, university professors and human rights activists. The research took the students to different parts of the widespread city of Nairobi, and one of them even travelled to the town of Kitengela outside Nairobi to spend a few days with the project staff of a women’s empowerment programme.
As a group, the students got to meet the Horn of Africa Project Director at International Crisis Group to receive input from him about current events in Kenya as well as their research topics. We also visited UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), where we learnt about the refugees that have come to Kenya from nearby countries such as Somalia and South Sudan, the options they have when they are unable to return to their country, and the challenges they face.
The IDD is fortunate enough to have a strong alumni community in Kenya, from which we received a warm welcome at our IDD alumni reception. One of them had even boarded a two hour flight to be at the event to meet the ‘IDD family’, as we often describe it. During our stay, the alumni were also very helpful in connecting the students with appropriate people to interview and collect their data. IDD alumnus Kenneth Okwaroh has been particularly generous with his time and contacts, for which we are very grateful.
Field research aside, Kenya had plenty of extracurricular activities to offer to the students such as patting baby elephants at the Elephant Orphanage, bargaining for local handicrafts at the Maasai Market, a boat trip amongst hippos and a safari in the Maasai Mara.
All in all, it has been a great opportunity for the students to experience the rewards and challenges of field research, and what it might be like to work in the development sector.