Abigail Collinson and Catherine Wilson were today (Saturday) announced as the joint winners of the Harry Steele-Bodger Memorial Scholarship travel award for 2009. The announcement came during the Awards Ceremony at the British Veterinary Association’s Annual Congress in Cardiff.
Abigail Collinson, who graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in July, was awarded £550 towards a feasibility study for the provision of a community-based animal healthcare worker (CAHW) scheme in the region of Kharekhari Village, Rajastan, India.
Catherine Wilson, a final year student at the University of Cambridge Veterinary School, also received £550 to enable her to start a study into the zoonotic causes of abortion present in domestic ruminants in Western Kenya and correlate her findings with the zoonotic diseases present within the human community in this area.
The Trustees of the Harry Steele-Bodger Memorial Scholarship Fund commented that both these were useful humanitarian projects which would not only be of educational value to the award recipients but would benefit communities in developing countries.
Notes for editors
1. The Harry Steele-Bodger Memorial Scholarship was established in 1953 to honour the memory of Mr Henry W Steele-Bodger, President of the BVA 1939/41, in recognition of his great services to the veterinary profession and agriculture, particularly during the war years of 1939/45. The award is only open to graduates of veterinary schools in the UK and Ireland who have been qualified for not more than three years, or to penultimate or final year students at these schools.
2. Abigail will be working alongside The Tree of Life for Animals (TOLFA), a charity which is very supportive of a rural development scheme in the area around its veterinary hospital. Her survey, this autumn, will be conducted in six villages local to the hospital and will involve semi-structured interviews, participatory exercises and focus groups. It will cover socio-political issues, livelihoods, livestock husbandry and health, existing animal health services and options for improving animal health services. Once analysis is complete, further discussion with the communities will be held to decide if a CAHW scheme is appropriate, practical and sustainable. The long-term aim is to create self-sufficiency amongst the villagers in basic veterinary care. Abigail graduated from the Royal Veterinary College this summer: she hopes to focus on veterinary work involving sustainable development for the benefit of animals and humans and believes this project will further develop her knowledge and skills in this area.
3. Catherine is entering her final year at Cambridge Veterinary School. The aim of her project, undertaken this summer, is to establish a reporting network and sample collection system for ruminant abortions and in the Lwak Community near Kisumu in Western Kenya, in order to determine whether any zoonotic causes of abortion are present amongst the domestic ruminants of this community. The data gathered will eventually be used in conjunction with data from human miscarriages in the community to determine the main threats from zoonotic causes of abortion. While in the area Catherine will also be helping to train Animal Health Technicians in the use of diagnostic equipment available in the field, as well as assisting with the first stages of implementation of a surveillance system which will soon be piloted in the area, as a fast way to determine the presence of any emerging diseases, which has already found to be successful in the Australian Outback. These tasks offer Catherine a brilliant opportunity to further her knowledge of veterinary public health and laboratory research work as well as gaining valuable experience of veterinary work in the developing world.
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