From the Nicaragua Workshop

Greetings from Nicaragua. I just finished leading an AuthorAID workshop here on scientific writing. In addition to attendees from Nicaragua, there were three attendees from Honduras and three from Cuba. Here’s a photo of most of us.

One participant was my co-facilitator, Freddy Alemán, of the Universidad Nacional Agraria in Nicaragua. As well as helping to lead the workshop, Freddy translated my 12 PowerPoint slides into Spanish and was my interpreter. Thanks, Freddy, for all your assistance!

Thanks also to Ruth Velia Gómez Centeno (of the Universidad Nacional Agraria too), who coordinated arrangements for the workshop. Ruth’s fine work did much to help the workshop go smoothly. Ruth also gave an excellent presentation about the Nicaraguan activities of PERI (the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information).

Another excellent presentation was made by Nathalie Persson Andrianasitera, of the International Foundation for Science (IFS). Nathalie, who traveled from Sweden to take part in the workshop, described IFS’s program to support the activities of young researchers in developing countries.

We worked hard for the 4 days of the workshop. Before and after the workshop, some of us went sightseeing. Nicaragua is known as the land of lakes and volcanoes, and I enjoyed visiting a volcano and seeing some beautiful lakes.

I wish that many of you could have joined us for the workshop (and the sightseeing). Here are links to the main slides of my PowerPoint presentations, in both English and Spanish. I hope you’ll find them useful.