Human
Interest Story of Afolabi S.A. for CARTA
1.
Introduce yourself, your
institution, your research area etc.
I am Sulaimon A.
Afolabi, a doctoral candidate in the department of Demography and Population Studies,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. I am a staff member of the Medical Research
Council/Wits Rural Public Health & Health Transitions Research Unit also
known as the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System Site. My research interest is mainly on
the components of population change namely migration, mortality and fertility
and their impact on the health and well-being of the populace.
2.
There are other PhD fellowships,
what made you prefer to apply to the CARTA PhD fellowships?
It inculcates
research capacity development especially in my field of interest i.e.
population and health. Also, it promotes collaboration and networking among the
fellows. It exposes the fellow to the crème de la crème in the field of
population and health research.
3.
What are your hopes and dreams in
the CARTA PhD program?
I hope to garner the necessary expertise to finish my doctoral
program and afterwards apply the acquired skill to proffer solution to the
population and health challenges being faced in sub-Saharan Africa. In future,
I envisage mentoring and nurturing upcoming researchers. This may entail the
replication of the CARTA program. More importantly, I dream of becoming an outstanding
researcher in my field of endeavour.
4.
What is so endearing to you in
CARTA?
It avails me the opportunity to network and
collaborate with scholars from other institutions in Africa and beyond. It
provides array of knowledge, scholarship and other opportunities being
disseminated from the secretariat. Being a CARTA fellow gives an identity that
can boost one’s credibility, recognition most especially when it comes to
seeking for research grants.
5. Do you have some personal experiences with CARTA that you
would want to share to encourage others to also become CARTA fellows
Whenever I present my challenges and
concerns to the CARTA management, they try as much as possible to address them.
6.
What progress have you made so far
in your PhD studies? Have you defended your proposal, have you done
publications from your PhD work etc
My proposal
has been approved by my institution. Hence, I can continue with my research.
Currently, I am at the thesis writing stage. Meanwhile, I have presented my
work at the 2012 edition of the Population Association America (PAA) conference
in San Francisco, USA and I will be doing the same in Busan, South Korean at
the 2013 edition of the International Union for the Scientific Study of
Population (IUSSP) conference
7.
It is common knowledge that not
everything is without hitches/sacrifices, kindly share these with me so that I
can bring them out for people to be prepared to also face the same as they take
up the CARTA program.
My arduous
challenge is in attempting to carve out time out of no time for my research. Nevertheless,
I have taken a clue from one of the sayings of the late Martin Luther King,
which goes thus, "If you cannot fly then run, if you cannot run then walk,
if you cannot walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving
forward."
