Three Young Scientist winners from Dundalk return from trip to Zambia

Three Dundalk students have just returned from a study visit to Africa, almost two years after they won the trip as a prize at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

Jona Garcia, Claudine Mulihano and Iman Shittu – all former students of St Louis Secondary School in Dundalk, travelled with a group of winning young scientists to far off Zambia, where they visited projects, communities, and met student peers, on a visit that was organised by Irish development charity, Self Help Africa.

Jona, Claudine and Iman were the 2022 winners of the Irish Aid sponsored 'Science for Development Award', which includes a travel bursary that is presented annually at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition, in Dublin.

They won the award for creating a renewable and electricity-free cooling system for food refrigeration. Organised by Self Help Africa development education unit to encourage student scientists to think about issues and challenges confronting people in poorer countries of the world when they design their BT projects, the three Dundalk students winning entry used salt and sunlight to help preserve food.

“In poorer countries in the world people live without electricity, so there is no opportunity for them to keep their food fresh in a refrigerator,” Jona Garcia explains. “By using items that are easy to access we believe that our device could have a role to play.”

All three girls have since finished school and are studying at university – Jona and Iman in Dublin, and Claudine in Galway – but the trip to Zambia brought them back together, and united them with a number of other winners of the Irish Aid sponsored travel prize.

While it was Iman and Jona’s first visit to Zambia, for Claudine it was a chance to return to a country where she had lived, earlier in her life.

“When I was young my family moved from Democratic Republic of Congo and lived for five years in Zambia. I lived here until my family found our new home in Ireland,” she said. “In many ways it was like coming home.

“We visited communities and projects that Self Help Africa is implementing in the country, and also met with Zambian schoolchildren, with whom we shared stories,” she recalls. “It was a very special experience.”

Dorothy Jacob, Development Education programme co-ordinator at Self Help Africa said that the recent visit brought a group of students that included four years of winners of the ‘Science for Development Award,’ to Zambia.

“The winners of the Science for Development Award would traditionally travel with us as part of schools study visit that we arrange annually for students and teachers, but because of the Covid-19 pandemic this trip has not happened for the past number of years.

“As a result, the winners of the Irish Aid bursaries from 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 travelled on this visit,” she said.

“Our schools visits are arranged as an immersive experience for young people, and provide them with an opportunity to learn more about the country that is visited, participate in workshops and presentations with their student peers, visit development projects, and hopefully develop a better understanding of the lives of people in sub-Saharan Africa,” she added.

To find out more about the Irish Aid sponsored ‘Science for Development Award’ and Self Help Africa’s schools programme, visit: selfhelpafrica.org/ie
/education/.