With few pharmaceutical research firms in Africa, we have relied on US help over the last few years. However, we have all the natural resources that we need in Africa to carry out the research. It’s just up to us to reach out to nature to discover the drugs.
Favourite Subjects: Chemistry, Physics and Biology. I want to be a research scientist in some form. I’ve always enjoyed working in labs and doing research since starting at high school. My teachers made me realise how chemistry is the very core part of our lives, so for the last two years of senior school I would be keen to help my teachers preparing for exams which gave me a lot of valuable lab experience. These simple experiences helped me find my passion for working in labs and made me more intrigued to build on these skills in the chemicals industry.
Reflective Essay: My topic has been how coronavirus has affected prices in Zambia. This has involved research into the country’s economic reaction to the virus, how local production has been affected, and how reliable the global market is. Being an economically low-income country, it has been tough for Zambia to meet international business competition since its local production capacity halted due to the pandemic. This means the revenue it generates from exports has gone down. Because it is such a current topic, there aren’t many books about the subject so has involved a lot of research on Google!
Hopes for future career: I’d like to start off working in chemical research, then perhaps specialise in medicine or pharmaceutical research. I like to discover new things, so using nature to make discoveries and help our society would be a rewarding path for me.
Motivation to work hard: With few pharmaceutical research firms in Africa, we have relied on US help over the last few years. For the past decades, we’ve relied so heavily on foreign aid and assistance that we’ve forgotten what we ourselves can do to turn things around. We have all the natural resources that we need in Africa to carry out the research. It’s just up to us to reach out to nature to discover the drugs, which I’d really like to be a part of!
Also, many graduates who have the academic ability to find solutions for emerging tropical diseases are usually driven to make an impact abroad… once they leave, they forget their home country. Governments (especially Zambia’s) only select the top-performing students to grant them scholarships for abroad, leaving the country with a huge number of average students. Despite this transfer of, maybe, immature or ignorant students abroad, the emerging diseases for humans and crops drives me to pursue a scientific research career. And luckily, being in Our Moon has opened me up to these debilitating, yet solvable, issues.