Daniel Muasya’s success (QES2017) in his PhD program is an inspiring story of perseverance, despite a number of major personal challenges that started in the first year of his program and continued into his last year. Initially, Daniel had a student visa problem so his arrival in PEI was delayed by 4 months until December 2018. Some might say this delay was divine intervention because his wife ended up requiring a C-section in November 2018, so the delay meant that he was there to greet his new baby and help his wife with her convalescence from the C-section. Also, he had another family member require hospitalization during this four-month period, and so with his medical knowledge, he was able to assist and advocate for this family member as well during this delay. He had to take out a loan to pay off the hospitalization bills. However, the funding he received through a top-up scholarship received from UPEI allowed him to pay off the loan, which was a great relief from the financial stress.
Fortunately, Daniel was able to take a UPEI course online from Kenya from September to December 2018 (a precursor to the COVID-19 online era) so he had the course requirement to take the winter 2019 semester courses in Canada, as planned. However, on his return to Kenya in May 2019, another family emergency started. His father was diagnosed with cancer and the treatment again required him to divert some of his time and money to aid in the care of his father. Again, his top-up UPEI scholarship helped him to settle the medical bills he had, giving him peace of mind while focusing on his studies. Unfortunately, his father passed away in May 2020. Daniel was very thankful to be in Kenya with his father during his last year, to be given time off to help with all the funeral activities, and to provide emotional support to the rest of his family. Daniel’s inspiring story is one of perseverance, succeeding despite significant personal challenges
Daniel is very grateful to be a PhD student at UPEI and deeply appreciative of QES and UPEI for the scholarships. He has said that “I can confidently say that my university has student welfare at heart, with quality of life and studies being paramount. I did not have to engage in other activities to earn extra income to make ends meet, which was good considering the intensity of the courses and research work.”
Daniel has returned to his clinical position in the veterinary college at the University of Nairobi, and with his PhD secured, he has recently been promoted to a lecturer, applying his QES, Canadian and PhD experiences to the benefit of his university and community. He has provided pro bono rabies clinics and animal health management to members in his home and university community as well as in Meru County, given talks to high school and university students aspiring to be veterinarians, and participated in a stakeholder meeting to enrich wildlife veterinary medicine hands-on experience to veterinary students. He has truly become a global citizen and a wonderful ambassador for QES
It was Julie Oyoo’s dream to do her M.Sc., in a developed country, one that was fading after several unsuccessful applications over the years. She had decided to enroll at a Kenyan university and was visiting campus to seek advice on how to work and study at the same time because she needed her full-time salary to finance her education when she came across a notice about a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship opportunity pinned on the wall of the nutrition department. She took a picture of it using her mobile phone and continued to pursue her agenda for the day, not realizing at the time how it would change things for her. She applied for, and was accepted as, a Queen Elizabeth Scholar at the University of Prince Edward Island.
In a letter she wrote shortly after she defended her Master of Science research, Julie wrote, “Before I left Kenya, I wondered how I would travel alone and how my life would be away from home. You invited us to your family parties out of your kindness and I became so comfortable and fearless, knowing that I had families that I could always turn to whenever push came to shove.” She felt well supported despite the curveballs that came her way.
The COVID pandemic played a huge role in Julie’s QES experience. She had just completed her course work at the University of Prince Edward Island in March 2020 and decided to return to Kenya since there was so much uncertainty. This meant that the bulk of her research work was supported from a distance. A first challenge was the closure of schools nationwide, when her project was focused on school-nutrition programming. She adapted and re-worked her research proposal to work with children in community settings. Gaining entry to community settings in the midst of the pandemic was not going to be easy but Julie persevered, explaining how she would protect the children from infection. Eventually, Julie gained support from a number of communities near her home in Homo Bay County, Kenya. After many Zoom and What’s App conversations, with less than wonderful internet connectivity, Julie successfully completed her research project and her UPEI degree.
The food-based nutrition education intervention that Julie developed and tested used a theory and practical learning approach similar to the current competency-based curriculum used by the Ministry of Education in Kenya, to teach school children the recommended nutrition practices that maximized the uptake and utilization of iron, zinc, β carotene and vitamin C, which are common micro-nutrient deficiencies among school-age children in Kenya. Her work has informed the development of curriculum for school nutrition club interventions that FHF is now implementing with strong success.
To quote Julie when she is describing her experience as a QES 2017 Scholar, “It is my biggest life achievement.”
Sarah Muthee, a QES2015 Scholar, completed a MSc in nutrition at UPEI, and decided that her future was in Charlottetown, not in Kenya. She has been hired into the Diversity and Inclusion Program of the provincial government’s Public Service Commission. She is in charge of the “Staffing, Classification and Organizational Development”. Her poverty experiences in Kenya as a child and young adult (growing up in the slums of Nairobi), and her graduate student experiences in Canada make her an ideal candidate for the position. She is a gifted speaker and an incredible ambassador for the QES program.
Julia Kenney was a QEScholar veterinary intern in 2017. Post-graduation, she worked as a veterinarian in Ontario and then moved to Peru with her husband – she currently volunteers as a veterinarian in Peru. Her QES internship had such a strong impact on her that she has continued to be global citizen in Peru.