Friday Newsletter

Dear Centre Leaders,
Greetings from the INDEPTH Secretariat. We hope you have had a good week.

We have three items for your attention this week:

1. Policy Engagement and Research Communications Specialist
INDEPTH Network is seeking an experienced and highly motivated Policy Engagement and Research Communications Specialist to head the Policy Engagement and Communications Section of the Secretariat in Accra.

Click for details (Policy Engagement and Research Communications Specialist )

2. INDEPTH Small Grants Programme
Don’t miss this opportunity to apply for small grants from INDEPTH. The overall goal of this INDEPTH Small Grants programme is to support research and research capacity strengthening among INDEPTH member centres in low- and middle-income countries. We fund collaborative projects among three or more INDEPTH member centres.

Please see attached for details.

3. Meet our graduates from the INDEPTH-funded MSc Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
This series of short profiles is to introduce the more than 30 HDSS scientists who have been funded by INDEPTH to pursue the MSc in Population-based Field Epidemiology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Scholarships for this programme have been graciously provided by Sida, Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation. .

More information on the INDEPTH Scientific Development and Leadership Programme can be obtained by clicking on the following link: Leadership Programme.

Meet Daniel Azongo of Navrongo HDSS, Ghana.

Full name: Daniel K. Azongo
Position before the programme: Research Officer/Head of fieldwork Navrongo HDSS, Ghana
Current Position : Senior Research Officer/Head, Navrongo HDSS, Ghana
Student years at Wits University: 2006 - 2007
Host HDSS centre for the field attachment: Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies, South Africa

According to Daniel, the overall focus of the programme was to build his capacity to be able to identify key bio-medical and public health problems that may be addressed by epidemiological or demographic studies and design solutions to those problems−skills that were immediately useful when he returned to Ghana as well as contributing to the core business of his institution; proposal development, implementing health research projects and contributing to data analysis and scientific writing for peer review journals.

“I had the opportunity to do my field attachment at the Africa Centre (AC) for Health and Population Studies. At Africa Centre, I had the privilege of working with a wide range of scientist including Epidemiologist, Demographers, Data Managers and GIS technicians. It was such a rich experience working with my supervisors Prof. Frank Tanser, the Director Prof. Marie Louise-Newell, Colin Newell and the rest of the staff. Our group of three (Daniel, James Ndirangu and Natsayi Chimbindi) had all the exposure and fun at the centre”, Daniel recalled.

He said during his time at the Wits University, one of the most profound experiences he had was at Agincourt HDSS where students were taught HDSS relational data base management by Prof. Sam Clark and the leadership module by Prof. Stephen Tollman.

“I am most grateful to the lecturers at Wits University for all the good work that they are doing,” he added.

“It has been an honour to be an INDEPTH Fellow and to be awarded the opportunity to study at such a great institution. Indeed the fellowship programme has equipped me with a lot of new skills including the ability to design a project, start it, and complete it. A fellowship that allows you to pursue your passion, it's been the best time of my life!” he said.

Daniel’s thesis publication was on Spatial analysis of Schsitosomaisis haematobium infection among school children in a rural sub-district of South Africa: An application of geographical information systems.

Thank you.

Have a restful weekend!

Becky Kwei