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International service
Sociology professor honored with LAS award.
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Ames may be Robert Mazur's permanent address, but the associate professor
of sociology is focused on the world outside central Iowa.
Prior to coming to Iowa State Mazur served as a Fulbright Lecturer at
the University of Zimbabwe in the mid '80s. There he established the basis
for that university's present population studies program.
Since then, he has been involved with research projects in southern Africa
and South and Southeast Asia where he has analyzed the linkages among
livelihood strategies (especially involving migration), income, food security
and health.
Along with a Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition colleague,
Mazur is researching child nutrition in HIV-affected communities in Ghana.
Those international efforts netted Mazur the 2002 Iowa State International
Service Award.
Instead of resting on his laurels, Mazur responded eagerly to a new opportunity
that recently emerged in the College of Agriculture.
He became actively involved in the Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (SRL)
Program and currently serves as the program's director. The program addresses
hunger and poverty through international partnerships with the opportunity
of "making a difference in people's lives."
Because of his additional international projects, Mazur was named the
third recipient of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Award for
Distinguished International Service, an award he received in March.
Despite all of his international work, Mazur says this is by far the most
exciting project he has ever worked on.
"All the theories you want to put into practice, we're doing with
Sustainable Rural Livelihoods," he said. "Our projects are not
only multi-disciplinary, but also multi-institutional."
The program is already starting to make a difference in people's lives
in Uganda where Iowa State has several ongoing projects. Through a $10
million donation from private benefactors, SRL is facilitating applied
research that supports the program's main focus on rural development interventions.
Mazur and the rest of the SRL management team have set up partnerships
with Uganda's Makerere University and Volunteer Efforts for Development
Concerns (VEDCO), a non-governmental organization.
"The first year we basically built the program from scratch,"
he said. "There's no program like this in the United States. Our
mission is to encourage and support rural development in the developing
world."
The program's first year was spent identifying appropriate settings and
potential partners, then starting to build relationships to help define
what such a program could and should do, and how it should go about it.
Uganda was eventually selected as the initial site for the program because
it had the right combination of forward-looking individuals and institutions
that are working toward the same goals as the ISU program.
"We came away quite impressed with what the Ugandan government, universities
and non-governmental agencies are doing," Mazur said.
SRL spent 2004 formalizing the relationships with Makerere University
and VEDCO as well as hiring staff. Mazur and other members of the management
team have traveled back and forth between Ames and Uganda making sure
the program is up and running.
Currently SRL is operating in four communities in the African country.
Each is a poor, rural farming community with no running water and dwellings
made of fired bricks or sticks and mud. HIV/AIDS is a major health concern
for many households in the communities.
Mazur says the plan is to work intensively with these communities for
the next three to five years.
"We work with the communities to help them articulate their aspirations
and vision, identify their assets, and develop strategies for addressing
the challenges that they face," he said.
Food security, diversified economic activities, and improved nutrition
and health are important objectives of SRL's work in each community. As
the program moves forward, Mazur says there exists tremendous potential
for Iowa State faculty to become involved in collaborative efforts with
faculty from Makerere University.
Around LAS
March 28 to April 10, 2005
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