Internship Insights: Improving Sustainable Rural Livelihoods of Farmers in Tanzania
As part of her Master's studies at the Institute of Science, Technology and Policy, Samira Amos completed an internship in Tanzania, where she participated in a project called "Research and Advocacy for Agroecology" with the aim to improve sustainable rural livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Tanzania.
Samira did a voluntary internship as part of her STP Master’s degree. She worked for external page SWISSAID Tanzania in collaboration with the Institute of Integrative Biology of ETH Zurich and external page Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT). There, she participated in the project "Research and Advocacy for Agroecology" with the aim to external page improve sustainable rural livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Tanzania. In doing so, Samira helped to identify agroecological best practices. She found the participatory research approach particularly interesting, with local farmers using apps co-conceived by ETHZ to collect data and share knowledge with each other (“Ugunduzi” and external page “Macho Sauti” app). In addition, she was also committed to other tasks. For example, she was excited to be able to visit external page eco-schools in Tanzania to learn from their approach for SWISSAID's youth development program, or to trek in the Uluguru Mountains in search of spice farmers who are setting up a external page social business to establish direct access to the organic (inter)national market.
For Samira, it was important to get out of her studies and gain hands-on experience. She found it very motivating to be directly involved in implementing some of the solutions to the challenges of our time and is very impressed with the work and dedication of everyone involved. She hopes to continue being part of this movement for change in the future and would like to spend her remaining semesters at the ISTP studying the power structures in the global trading system and Switzerland's role in this network.
