To the MyCOE/SERVIR workshop: Nairobi 9th to 19th December

As I sit here working steadily through the end of year marking there is a carrot dangling ahead.  I will travel to Nairobi soon to attend the MyCOE/SERVIR Fellowship workshop as mentor for one of our students, Natalie Ellis, to take part in a remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems training initiative.  Here’s the press release about the two of us provided by the Association of American Geographers who facilitate the programme. We’re both excited at this prospect: for Natalie it’s her first trip to the ‘real’ Africa and for me it’s a great opportunity to revisit Nairobi and see some Kenyatta University friends and colleagues.

We will be working with Fellows from the DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda to develop the use of geography and geographical technologies to develop local capacity and contribute to research development in Eastern and Southern Africa.  The key themes are climate change, food security and agriculture, disasters and hazard management, sustainable landscapes, women and climate change.  There’s plenty more on this at the My Community Our Earth website hosted by the AAG.

We don’t know where we will be staying yet though it’s likely to be near the Kasarani home of the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development.