On 8th March, in honour of International Women’s Day, TASTE held seminars in Lwengo district to inspire girls to believe that they could succeed in science-based careers. Gender stereotyping can be a real problem in Ugandan education, so it was really important to demonstrate that there are women around the world succeeding in science.

Our treasurer, Dr. Elizabeth Kyewalabye, was one of the first female Ugandans to qualify as a vet and she was a shining role-model as she spoke to students about her career. We were also able to show students the extraordinary women of the ScienceGrrl calendar, which shows the real and varied faces of women in science.

We have a guest post over on the ScienceGrrl blog, where you can find out how students reacted.

…read more at ScienceGrrl.

Lina Munro is a trustee for TASTE UK. She is volunteering in Uganda from January-March 2013 to help with the process of establishing the mobile lab. She recently sent this update about the first week of the mobile lab’s operations in Lwengo District, which reaches the blog slightly late due to an intermittent internet connection.

Hello from Uganda!

I’m very excited to be announcing that last week, TASTE formally began its operation of teaching practical science in rural Uganda. It is a week since Amy last blogged about TASTE, and we have now taught 30 hours of hands-on science over 3 days. Before this mini science marathon, Amy and I spent most of Monday buying 2 million shillings worth (about £500) of science equipment and chemicals from our initial supplier in Masaka. The supplier’s store was not unlike the wand shop from Harry Potter: it was dark and cramped, and there was an inexplicable way of ordering chemicals involving various iterations of copying out order prices before finally adding up on the final receipt. When we were finished, it was extremely satisfying to see the once-empty truck loaded with things that screamed ‘science!’ We were looking forward to using them with the students and we started testing out the planned practical lessons.

The school at which we taught the first lessons … read more ›

Amy Buchanan-Hughes, a member of TASTE staff who is currently in Uganda helping to set up the mobile laboratory, has described progress so far. The Ugandan school term begins on 4th February, and TASTE has met with headteachers and organised its first lessons in preparation for this, as Amy describes.

After nearly 18 months of preparation, planning and fundraising, TASTE is finally getting close to full operation! Lina and I have now been in Uganda for nearly four weeks getting everything set up. Here’s a selection of what we’ve been up to:

TASTE’s central feature is the mobile science lab, so our first priority when we arrived was to buy a suitable van. The Toyota Hiace is used ubiquitously in Uganda for public transport, which made it a sensible choice for us – we know that they are reliable even on the more ‘interesting’ roads, and spare parts will be easy to find if we need them. And so, by late afternoon on our second day in Uganda, we were the proud owners of the African Science TRUCK!

We were informed that we had to wait to get licence plates, which would be ready by Saturday. On Saturday, we were told Monday, and on Monday they insisted that they could not *possibly* have said Saturday because the earliest they could be ready is Tuesday.
… read more ›