| | | | | Connie Nshemereirwe Independent Science and Policy Facilitator in Kampala, Uganda
Co-Chair, Global Young Academy
What was the most recent thing you learned from someone else?
One of my highly educated younger relatives speaks to people from all walks of life the same way she would speak to someone as highly educated as herself – falling into discussions of fairly complex and abstract ideas without hesitation. Watching her do this I observe that although she normally starts out receiving blank stares, she explains what she means and listens carefully to the other person making sense of her explanation, and together they end up making sense of what she had to say; this means that she ends up connecting with the most unlikely people. What this has taught me is that everyone is capable of thinking about almost anything, as long as I start from the premise that they can indeed think as well as anybody else, and give them the opportunity to exercise this thinking; as such, my high education need not isolate me from people around me (which I tend to feel it does).
Which science policy problem can be solved without money?
As a science and policy facilitator, I consider Science Policy as part of my job. One of the things that I do all the time is translate seemingly obscure and useless scientific knowledge into tangible short and longterm benefits for society, and so demonstrate the value of doing science. This takes up my time, sure, but no one (currently) pays me to do it, and it is something that every scientist with the necessary communications training can do on and off duty.
Reading’s a must! But which one?
Reading is one of the most dependable ways by which one can gain incredible insights into one’s own life, as well as the lives of others and the world around us in general. Reading has not only brought great pleasure into my life, it has also been the source of many aha moments; a book that still reverberates in my life to this day, for instance, is “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by the Brazilian Philosopher Paulo Freire, which I started reading in mid-2016 and still continue to learn from – highly recommended!
Anything else?
Just a random fact that I enjoy sharing with most people that I meet: my name, Nshemereirwe, is a full sentence in my mother tongue, Rukiga, and means: “I am happy”, and inspires me to live up to it – my parents did well in naming me! | | | | | |
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