BVA Overseas Travel Grants 2007
BVA Congress, 29 September 2007
The BVA travel scholarship scheme, instituted in March 1983, awards grants annually to veterinary students to enable them to undertake projects in developing countries. This year the BVA has awarded four grants of £500 to:
- David Mills (Cambridge) to study on-farm welfare of Kenyan beef cattle and to carry out an assessment of the potential of developing countries to access niche high welfare export markets in the EU;
- Emma Pearson (Glasgow) to raise community awareness about the importance of specific diseases in Masai cattle in Tanzania and help to sustain enhanced food security involving small scale poultry and goat production;
- Aniket Sardana (Bristol) to study the impact of extensive versus intensive cattle systems of livestock and environmental health in the Brazilian Pantanal; and
- Kate Woolley (Liverpool) to investigate the prevalence of tick-borne diseases of domestic dogs in the Serengeti region of Tanzania.
Two additional travel grants of £500 supported by the World Association of Transport Animal Welfare and Studies (TAWS), in collaboration with the BVA, were awarded to Caroline Foalks (RVC) to consider factors affecting the welfare of working equids in Mexico assessed using observational means and Patrick Sells (Liverpool) who will be travelling to Morocco in November (by motorbike to raise funds for SPANA) to carry out a study of harness sores and injuries.
The motivational value of travel grants has also inspired the Donkey Sanctuary to join forces with the Overseas Group by providing opportunities for undergraduates to visit their overseas project sites. Lucy Meehan (Liverpool) and Lidewij Wiersma (Bristol) were selected to visit Donkey Sanctuary project sites in Ethiopia.
Impressed by the high standard of applications received this year, Laura Bowen, chairman of the BVA Overseas Group, commented: “Such opportunities not only give the students exposure to a wide range of veterinary experiences - essential for understanding and dealing with the ever increasing number of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging livestock diseases in today’s shrinking world - but also furnish them with the beneficial life skills of communication, adaptability and open-mindedness. The BVA Overseas Group needs no convincing that this is money well spent”.
Notes for Editors
1. The BVA travel scholarship scheme, instituted in March 1983, awards grants annually to undergraduates attending a veterinary school in the United Kingdom. Applicants are required to be in their clinical years and should be undertaking a project which includes a strong element of development work. The project should be of benefit both to the student and the country concerned. The work is usually carried out during the summer vacation. Since 1983, grants have been awarded to 87 veterinary students enabling them to undertake projects in 37 different developing countries. For further information please contact Helena Cotton at BVA on 020 7636 6542 or by e-mail: helenac@bva.co.uk
2. The TAWS grants support veterinary undergraduates undertaking projects involving working transport animals or animals used for draught work in developing countries. For further information on the work of TAWS visit: www.taws.org
3. The Donkey Sanctuary awards grants to support veterinary undergraduates visiting a DS project site in Mexico, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya or India. For further information on the work of The Donkey Sanctuary visit: www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk
|
|
|
|---|---|
Return to BVA Congress Press Room 2007