By Meshack M. Ngangi | January 24, 2025
The Co-operative University of Kenya continues to be a global leader and trailblazer in academia, especially with particular emphasis on cooperative training. This January 2025, we had the privilege of hosting Ms. Julia Beideck, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Management, Economics, and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne in Germany.
In an interview with Meshack Ngangi, a public relations officer at the university, Ms. Beideck, a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) scholar, identified her keen interest in cultural cooperatives, which form the basis of her doctoral dissertation. She noted that there are cultural cooperatives in Germany, which are a relatively new subtype of cooperatives, giving examples of cinema cooperatives, theater cooperatives, and museum cooperatives, among which handicraft cooperatives exist.
With an unquenched thirst for knowledge beyond borders, Ms. Beideck expressed academic curiosity about handicraft cooperatives triggered by a scientific paper she had engaged with. Given that Kenya’s cooperative movement is ranked the leading in Africa and seventh globally with an asset base of over 1 trillion Kenyan Shillings, her interest in collecting data on Kenyan handicraft cooperatives and enhancing a deeper understanding of them by attending (doctoral) courses has been further established. The data collected in combination with the insights gained from the university professors and faculty staff would essentially inform her planned scientific study paper, which would provide a comparative case study of a handicraft cooperative in Kenya and a handicraft cooperative in Germany.
Expounding on her fulfilling experience, Ms. Beideck noted that both purposes of her academic exploration had been accomplished since she had the chance to collect the data and attend a few courses.
“I met a few people. I had several conversations, for example, with the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kamau Ngamau, with different professors, PhD students, and the Co-operative Alliance of Kenya (CAK), and with several stakeholders here at the campus. So I’m really happy and glad to be here because I could fulfill both of my purposes,” said Julia.
Further, Ms. Beideck highlighted that she achieved beyond her expectations because the opportunity to be in Kanya afforded her a chance to interact with many people, exchange ideas, and experience the kind and warm hospitality of everyone she met on a personal basis and in her research endeavors. The stay at the University was a golden opportunity for her to expand her network, especially scientific networks, by connecting with Kenyan scholars on diverse research perspectives.
“I would recommend it to every PhD student, not only from Germany but maybe from the whole world, to apply for a DAAD scholarship. A lot of things are new and different, but if you are open and interested, respectful, and kind, you will experience the same, and things will come back to you in the same way,“ said Ms. Beideck.
As her parting shot, Ms. Julia Beideck expressed that greater and groundbreaking achievements would be attained if researchers (worldwide) like her interested in cooperatives worked together since they have so much that connects them in terms of ideas, expertise, competencies, and interests.
