Data Collection in Southern Sudan, with Special Reference to Vocational Training Centers and Local industries

During one of my journeys between Arusha (Tanzania) and Nairobi, I had sat next to a young couple from Australia as my companions in the bus. The couple is conducting seminars on Empowering youth/adults on life skills (East African Countries, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania). During our long conversation at one point, I asked them for curiosity, how Australia is able to fare well in terms of education, and most of all doing research in vocational fields and equipping other neighboring countries with research methodologies. Furthermore I asked them, the methodologies they normally used when doing research or conducting the seminars with participants. The couple responded that involvement of the indigenous of the area where the research is conducted is the key to develop new knowledge and skills, which a researcher may not have been in picture. They said, when they start conducting seminar in all these countries, they invite people of the area to speak out of what they really need for the local area to prosper in development, because when they give their views, the researcher will be equip with the realistic picture of the local needs. The young couple continued to explain to me on how they also encountered problems doing their researched sometime back, because they used to decide for the people and tell them what to do and how to do it. As researchers, they said, doing data collection in the field of research (with people of the area) does not mean he/she is there to tell the participants what they should do and how to do it but rather as an active participant among them, on the other hand he/she should not get loss in the crowd forgetting the purpose of his/her being among them.