The partnerships among UPEI and its four QES 2014 project partners (Farmers Helping Farmers, Naari Dairy Farmers Cooperative Society, University of Nairobi, and Kenyatta University) have led to stronger working relationships among the partners and capacity building within each partner. The strengths of each partner were effectively utilized, with symbiotic results greater than the sum of their parts. These partnerships have continued into the QES 2017 UPEI Phase 2 project, with expansion into the Buuri Dairy Farmers Cooperative Society which is a neighbour of the Naari Dairy Farmers Cooperative Society.
The QES Phase 1 Interns did an excellent job in their volunteer activities in Kenya. They worked well together and with the Scholars, and with the Kenyan partners in this integrated project. The Kenyans partners loved them and looked after them extremely well because of their
efforts. The Interns have truly become global citizens with their experiences – as shown by two Interns becoming board members of Farmers Helping Farmers, and other Interns have returned or are returning to volunteer in Kenya again.
We are proud of all of our QES Scholars who worked hard to pass their UPEI courses, collect their research data in Kenya, successfully write and defend their theses, and return to Kenya to deliver seminars to communicate the results back to the Naari community. They have become global citizens with their experiences in Canada and Kenya, as shown by their successful abstract submissions for presentations at regional, national and international conferences. We look forward to seeing what they do in the future.
In May 2019, one particular QEScholar, Dr. Dennis Makau was awarded the Governor General’s Award at the 2019 UPEI Convocation for the best PhD thesis. Dennis has all 5 substantive chapters from his thesis published in peer-reviewed journal journals. Dennis and the whole UPEI QES team were thrilled with this award.
