Kenyan don, Matilda Ouma, has won an international award that honours individuals whose work makes food available across the world through mentorship and teaching.
Known as ‘Inspiring the Next Generation’ award, it is offered annually by the World Food Prize Foundation based in the US.
It is part of the $500,000 (Sh75 million) World Food Prize that recognises the contribution of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize Norman Borlaug to improving access to food.
For 23 years, Dr Ouma has mentored international scientists attached to the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) — which is affiliated to the Foundation. Since launch in 1970, Icipe, with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, works on human, animal, plant, and environmental health.
In the more than two decades, Dr Ouma of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology’s (JOOUST) School of Agricultural and Food Sciences has mentored 33 young scientists.
She said the “successful mentorships have produced scholars of eminence with broad outlook and ideological perspectives in addressing global hunger through scientific research on food security and sustainable agriculture.”
On Facebook, JOOUST said the don has “tirelessly” mentored learners at the world-acclaimed centre, praising her for the “well deserved” honour.
The award, the don said, is “a recognition that has placed my footprints on global food security [map]” by minting “the next generation of hunger fighters as teacher, mentor and mom.”
Inspiring the Next Generation award was created to honor teachers who are critical to the success of the World Food Prize youth education programmes such as mentorship, says the Foundation.
The World Food Prize covers a wide field that supports food supply, including food science and technology; nutrition; plant, animal and soil science; food processing and packaging; rural development; water and the environment; and natural resource conservation.
“Let’s us all dream to make our youth the hub of global agricultural transformation focusing on ending global hunger,” Dr Ouma said as she received the trophy in the US end of October.
The prize is issued every October on or near the UN World Food Day marked on October 16 in Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines.
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Food security is an ever-fresh topic that is keeping governments, researchers, NGOs and industrialists awake as millions of people grapple with hunger, malnutrition and starvation. In Kenya, where various non-governmental institutions have a presence with a focus on a green revolution and smart agriculture, starvation has left a trail of death, stunting, ill-health and snail-pace education in some arid regions.
editor@aplain.co.ke
