This is the fourth blog from Nutsa Kvitashvili who is following the BA Program of Sociology at Caucasus School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Nutsa is the recipient of the ESOMAR Foundation Scholarship sponsored by Inizio.

I’m halfway through the first semester of my 4^th year at Caucasus University and everything is going pretty well. I wrote my last midterm few days ago so it was a busy month for me. In this semester I study very interesting subjects such as sociology of education, sociology of religion and so on but sociology of arts and visual sociology are my favorite subjects. I have great lecturers in every subject. It’s my senior year in university, so during classes we are more focused on discussions and seminars rather than quizzes. The homeworks are so interesting that I’m reading them like an adventure book.

Every year my university (Caucasus University) has a lot of fun activities during the holiday season to cheer up students. In the hallway we have charity boxes so students can put warm clothes, toys, Christmas trees and food in them, and all those things will be donated to children’s orphanage and to the families with social vulnerabilities. This kind of activities really make a difference and brings out the holiday spirit.

Also, we have activities like Secret Santa which is a Christmas game. If you want to be a part of this game you have to register on the site and each registered student will receive a name but doesn’t tell which name they got and after registration they are responsible for the gift for the person they received. All the gifts are placed in a general area for opening at a designated time and each recipient then finds out who their Secret Santa is. Students, university managers and workers are participating in this game so this time of the year in our university is filled with a holiday atmosphere.

I finished my midterm exams so now I’m looking forward to holiday vacations. This year I will spend new year with my family and my friends at the holiday dinner. Christmas is a time for making new memories, cherish friends, family and it’s the season of loving and sharing the spirit of the holiday season. I want to wish a merry Christmas and a happy new year to you, may this new year bring you peace, love, joy and happiness for you and your loved ones.

How you can support

If you are a market researcher, a national market research association, an NGO involved in research or a university interested in a scholarship in your country please contact us at info@esomarfoundation.org

Partners & Sponsors

We are always on the lookout for partners and sponsors. If you are an organisation looking to understand more on how you can support us, please find more information here or contact:  info@esomarfoundation.org

The end of the year is fast-approaching and I am not looking forward to searching for new hobbies to keep me occupied. I doubt I will be visiting my family this Christmas due to the fact that I have not found employment as yet. However, I have to remain positive for the sake of sanity.

The exam season ended on the 24^th of November, just the day before the 25^th being my birthday! A great way to end the exams. I also presented to Colgate-Palmolive on the 27^th of November with Patience, Ridwanaah and Farzaana (the girls who attended the SAMRA conference with me).

The presentation was based on an assignment we wrote on ways to improve the sales of the Colgate toothpaste in informal stores around South Africa. Hopefully the company will consider recruiting us after listening to our creative ideas. We can only pray!

The scholarship awarded to Nicolin was sponsored by SSI and in collaboration with SAMRA.

This is the first blog from Innocent Rwamba Nyaga who is following the MS in market research at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Innocent is the recipient of the ESOMAR Foundation / MSRA Scholarship sponsored by WIRe and Unilever

The phrase ‘baptism by fire’ was first coined by John the Baptist in the Bible in The New Testament and was mainly mentioned in regard to peoples’ ability to be cleansed and consecrated spiritually. Its application now originates from Europe describing an employee that is learning something the hard way, like being immersed in their field of employment. Baptism by fire also has its roots in battle terminology, describing a soldier’s first time in battle.

This is true for my interaction with the subject of Market Research as an actual field of work or study and this was initiated (literally) by a guest lecture in the university by Phyllis Macfarlane. I hadn’t attended a class by then so she was my opening to the subject and what it entails in the real world. I left that two day seminar a believer. Like most people in Kenya, Market Research is not known very well as it has not been an avenue to get employment. You see, when we go to university, we choose fields that will enable students get a job at the end of it all because that is the societal pressure we face. The idea of using one’s talent as a way of making a living is a concept that has just penetrated the country and more so Africa as a whole. This is because we have been brought up to uphold tradition and to always obey our elders (in this case parents/guardians) as they know what’s best of us.

It’s a very interesting subject for me as I am very passionate about people in general, what makes them tick and being able to put myself on their lever to better understand them. This degree will further this ability and together with training, I’ll be well integrated in the industry. Honestly, I find myself looking forward to being done with this part of schooling and getting my hands dirty, so to speak.

I have had a couple of months’ worth of classes now and truthfully my best class so far is on Marketing Ethics and Governance taught by one Dr. Joseph Owino, every Monday evening, worth every penny this lecture. What’s interesting is his ability to let his students think critically by providing real life situations/scenarios by way of case studies and asking pertinent questions that make us think because the aspect of ethics is not always a given for all. One may choose to be ethical or not in every aspect of life. The other subjects are interesting too thing is I need to invest more time in doing more out of class research so as to reach a suitable level of understanding.

This Scholarship really is special because women in general and especially in Africa face a lot of challenges specifically when it comes to advancing themselves so as to reach that level of self-actualisation that Maslow’s theory/hierarchy of needs talks about. Besides these challenges women are strong willed, future oriented and can survive any environment. To ESOMAR Foundation, WIRe, MSRA and Unilever, I’m forever indebted to you. I will endeavour to be a good example to those who come behind me and I shall take full advantage of this opportunity.

How you can support

If you are a market researcher, a national market research association, an NGO involved in research or a university interested in a scholarship in your country please contact us at info@esomarfoundation.org

Partners & Sponsors

We are always on the lookout for partners and sponsors. If you are an organisation looking to understand more on how you can support us, please find more information here or contact:  info@esomarfoundation.org

This is the fifth blog-post from Esther Tot who received the ESOMAR Foundation Scholarship to study at the English based Bachelor Degree program in International Business at the National University of Management (NUM) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

It’s kind of weird but wait until I’ll explain why there’s a baby prawn and an adult prawn! Yes, this is how I see myself! In Year1 I was a baby prawn, which just entered the university. Our lecturers like to call us Year1 students “Baby Prawn” because we are the youngest ones in school and we, baby prawns, are trying to adapt and learn from the adult prawns (Year 2, 3, 4 students). We have to learn and observe from them because when we enter the university it’s as if we are born into a new world or new place.

BUT_ BIG BUT (got this way of saying from my marketing lecturer which everyone love to use), so BIG BUT is that in November I will enter Year2 and I am so excited because I have passed all the exams of Year1. To be honest if people ask me whether it was easy, I would say not too easy and not too hard but it required so much self-discipline as I had talked about in my previous blog about Self-Discipline. What I mean by self-discipline is that we need to commit to having less sleep and more study time because there are loads of assignments that need to be completed and submitted. We have to be committed to school and assignments.

So now I am becoming an adult prawn as I am entering Year2! I don’t know what’s coming next but I guess it might be more fun than Year1 because there will be more and more assignments. But I am ready for it!!!

I can’t wait to finish my university and get a degree so I can have a good job with a high salary, which makes my life worth. It’s not easy but I believe one day I can become a Prawn Boss. There’s still a long way to go…. 2 more years till I reach Year4!

So my message to all the baby prawns is that it’s ok to have a lot of assignments and presentations because it will pay off when you will become an adult prawn. You will gain a lot of experience from your baby prawn year so work hard and if you fail don’t lose hope and please keep trying harder and harder each time you fail even though sometimes it seems that you have reached your limit. But don’t limit your education just keep letting it grow.

I would like to say thank you again to the ESOMAR Foundation for providing me with the special opportunity of having a better education and as well as achieving my dream as a poor kid to become a knowledgeable person.

Partners & Sponsors

We are always on the lookout for partners and sponsors. If you are an organisation looking to understand more on how you can support us, please find more information here or contact:  info@esomarfoundation.org

This is the third blog-post from Paola Loy Villagran, the recipient of the ESOMAR Foundation scholarship in Guatemala. Paola tells us about her studies and her social life. 

During the last months I started a Human Resources course in which we had to investigate the work climate of some companies in the country and we found that most of them have communication problems and that employees need to have access to all relevant information required to perform their duties, in any job employees must be motivated and they need training programs to constantly upgrade their existing skills. We learned about the term “human capital management” (or HCM) which represents the entire range of practices and processes for managing people in an organization and the drivers they should implement to develop employee engagement.

The key objective of every organization should be to train its employees so that they become efficient resources later on.

Also we received a Marketing Management course in which we learned how to increase sales, strategies to stand out in today’s world, how we can have a quality offering that meets customer needs, understand the market in which we compete, how to build a strong brand. I really enjoyed this class because we had the opportunity to analyze real cases of failure and success, like Blockbuster, Open English, Kodak, Netflix and last but not least McDonald´s. We even saw the movie “The Founder”, the story of Ray Kroc a salesman who turned the idea of two brothers into the biggest restaurant business in the world.

In my personal life everything is good, I’m trying to be focused in my studies, I have new friends from many parts of the country; most of them come to classes from far away places because unfortunately there aren’t good opportunities of study in rural areas.

In my free time I like to spend time with my nephews, I want them to be proud of me and believe in their dreams as I do, and keep fighting for what they want to achieve in life. Hopefully one day they will know about this opportunity and take it as an inspiration to become better students and professionals.

How you can support Paola

If you wish to support Paola and be the donor of this scholarship, we would be happy to connect and provide you more information. Please contact: info@esomarfoundation.org

How you can support in your country

If you are a market researcher, a national market research association, an NGO involved in research or a university interested in a scholarship in your country please contact us at info@esomarfoundation.org

Partners & Sponsors

We are always on the lookout for partners and sponsors. If you are an organisation looking to understand more on how you can support us, please find more information here or contact:  info@esomarfoundation.org 

This is the 14th blogpost from Nicolin Mamuya, the first ESOMAR Foundation scholarship in South Africa. The month of August is women’s month in South Africa!

This is the month where we celebrate all women as well as show gratitude to the four brave heroines (Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa, Sophie Williams and Helen Joseph) who marched to the Union Building to fight for the equality between genders.

Of course in my life, women’s month is every month! I strive to surround myself with friends who do not seek to compete with other females, but rather understand the significance of encouraging and empowering each other. I believe my obsession with women is due to being raised by a single mother.

My mother always emphasised about female power, which stuck in my head particularly because, I did not have a male figure in my life.
I believe females are slowly stretching out of the box that society has built around us. However, compared to the rest of the world, female leadership may still be considered taboo in Africa, with many males open to expressing their opposition. Therefore, I give credit to African female leaders such as the late Miriam Makeba, a late singer and female activist, Ellen Sirleaf, Africa’s first female president and Wangari Maathai, an environmental activist. Let them, along with other heroines, inspire bravery in many of us females.

The scholarship awarded to Nicolin was sponsored by SSI and in collaboration with SAMRA.

This is the fourth blog-post from Esther Tot who received the ESOMAR Foundation Scholarship to study at the English based Bachelor Degree program in International Business at the National University of Management (NUM) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Wohooo!!!!!! It’s the end of marketing class! Loads of assignments and self-discipline are over. At the same time there is also a year4 graduation party so our last and final assignment of the marketing class was to organize a party which is for all IBBA-er and especially for year4 students who are likely to graduate at the end of this year.

As an IBBA year1 or freshman year or as my marketing lecturer likes to call us the “baby prawn”, because we are the youngest among all the other classes at university, on August 12^th, 2017 all year1 held the task of organising one big event as we called it “IBBA Gala”. We divided into teams: the morning team planned and organized the activities of the event and we, the afternoon class, were tasked with contacting and finding sponsors for our event and we finally did a very good job! Our lecturer was proud of us as year1 students.

The activities and program had some fun features: female students in year1 had to dress like a man and male students had to dress as a girls and there were also some fashion shows as guy dressed as girl and girls dress as guy, as well as singing, and teachers and student awards.

As for me being in year1 and holding this kind of big event is something I will be proud of myself for the next few years because it is a real learning experience and I felt I was in a real world as a business woman and marketer.

I have successfully contacted the sponsor from Hot&Cold Café and my class successfully contacted BreadTalk, Major Cineplex, BOPEA, CAM Paint, and Domino’s Pizza (you can see the company’s logo on our backdrop).

This was the hardest year because it was my first year at university and next year I believe it will be better than this because I will learn to adapt to the university life from this year experience.

Partners & Sponsors

We are always on the lookout for partners and sponsors. If you are an organisation looking to understand more on how you can support us, please find more information here or contact:  info@esomarfoundation.org

The school break is reaching its end and I must admit that I am a bit afraid of returning to school. However, this is the final stretch and I am ready for the victory!

I have recently found myself getting closer to God and enjoying the company of people who share the same love I have for him. I grew up in a Catholic church, which means all I know is Catholic. However, recently I have started attending my friend’s church. I really enjoy their messages as well as the songs they sing. I have had many say I seem confused because, I immerse myself into different religious cultures. It is almost as though there is no sense of direction or stability in how I choose to praise God. I say it does not have to make sense. It is about my relationship with him and nothing else.

The scholarship awarded to Nicolin was sponsored by SSI and in collaboration with SAMRA.