Dear all,
As you probably know the plan for my research is to field research in the Central African Republic, to research the right to education there. You have all seen the image of the classrooms taken over by the military and understand the difficulties of the inability to educate a new generation growing up with conflict and violence.
Last week I met with UNICEF employees Esther and Florine. Esther has been working for UNICEF CAR as an emergency officer for two periods, Florine is setting up a cooperation between UNICEF NL and UNICEF CAR, starting an educational program for released child soldiers, which will include research.
The good news is that they are happy to work together. They gave me tons of very useful practical information, including ways to move around (never go alone, prepare for running into roadblocks, it takes about 5 days to get to another city, walking on the street in Bangui is generally OK), and a lot of information on the current situation of education in CAR. In addition they offered help for my research with contacts in the field. I on the other hand have promised to make videos of their education project on the ground and share all data and information. This is a win-win as for me the most use of my research will come if the data are actually being used to inform advocacy and policy.
The bad news is that due to recent outbursts of violence related to upcoming elections, the situation in the country is currently too dangerous to do research. Going soon would mean that I have to put a lot of time and energy into security - time and energy that I cannot spend on researching the field. Therefore I have decided to postpone the field research a little.
Hoping I get to go soon, I will stay in touch with UNICEF and especially these two great women. We all have the mission to spread education and improve the chances of the next generation in CAR and therefore I am so happy to work with them!
** UPDATE
I was asked about now that I am postponing the CAR field research, what I will be doing during the coming period. Good question - I will be focussing on field research in the Netherlands (on the right to education), and further developing the theoretical part of the research. So in fact some work I was planning to do later will be done now.
