Over two years on from when I first applied to become a Laidlaw scholar, this rare and amazing experience is coming to and end. When I initially applied, I was primarily drawn to the programme by the unique opportunity to undertake primary research on the scale provided, especially for a first-year university student. I had always had a passion for academia, and the chance to formulate and research a project of my own design alongside some world-class academics seemed like an opportunity far too good to pass up on. When it came to the second summer, I was similarly excited. Prior to my Leadership in Action project, I had never worked in such a professional environment, let alone leading a project in one. Not only was it an invaluable practical experience, but working being able to work with a number of charities doing amazing work helping people suffering from complex medical conditions only made the experience all that more worthwhile and fulfilling. Of course, neither year of the programme was entirely smooth sailing, not least because of the Coronavirus pandemic which hit just as I was preparing for my research project and forced a number of last-minute alterations. Despite this, however, and in some ways because of it, my time with the Laidlaw scholarship programme undoubtedly proved fruitful and worthwhile, and is an experience I am incredibly honoured to have been a part of.

When looking back at my research project, there were a number of highlights that stood out and that really made my experience special. As a first-year, I had no real experience of conducting primary research, and with my dissertation still two whole years away, it was something I had not considered much prior to applying for the Laidlaw programme. Being able to entirely formulate my own question and approach to my research was certainly a highlight. Having been used to doing work as dictated by teachers and lecturers, the opportunity to

develop and research a project which I myself was deeply passionate about was appealing. Similarly, the chance to double-down on work I had been doing at university and really concentrate on a single topic in far more detail than I had ever done previously was certainly exciting.

My research project was entitled ‘Economic and Political Causes of the Collapse of the East African Community in 1977’, a rather self-explanatory title relating to the collapse of the decade-long economic union between Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda that existed from 1967 to 1977. While undoubtedly important, especially for the people who lived through them and continue to live through their effects, many areas of African history have been greatly neglected in academia, especially in the West. While this is, of course, a great shame, it did add to my research the very exciting aspect that, in many cases, I was likely one of the first people to have ever looked at many of the primary sources which I drew on in my research.

Some of the more hands-on aspects of my planned research including research within the National Archives and the British Library, as well as the possibility of a few interviews with a number of contemporary figures, sadly had to be altered due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In response, I instead honed in on what sources were available to me online, through the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and the declassified files from the US National Archives. While of course a shame, in many ways being able to truly concentrate on a number of specific sources proved advantageous. Not only did it allow me to better focus my research, but it also provided invaluable experience for my dissertation, which in many ways I built off of a tangential aspect of my research project that I wanted to research in further detail.

As with many other aspects of my project, I was forced to alter my outputs at the last minute, near the end of my research. This change, however, was not prompted by the Coronavirus pandemic. Initially, my research was conducted alongside an academic from another university, contributing to a paper he was planning to write and publish. Unfortunately, nearing the end of my research I was informed that his funding had been massively cut and he would have to drop the project. This left me in an awkward situation and my final outputs were my research report, a public google drive compiling all of the primary sources I had located, and a brief ‘conversations’ article yet to be released. Despite this, there is still the potential for my work to have a future impact, and the time I did spend working with academics in other universities provided a great opportunity for networking and allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of what working as an academic entails.

One of the reasons I decided to look at the East African Community is that, while it did collapse in 1977, it was reformed in the year 2000. This new iteration of the EAC exists in a greatly expanded form than it did previously. Despite this, and despite the greatly increased scope for regional unity and development, the community is still facing many of the same issues it had faced in the ‘70s. A deeper understanding of what caused these issues and how they could possibly have been avoided, or at least broadly mitigated, would prove invaluable for the continued success of the community. While my research is almost certainly unlikely to have any broad impact on policy approaches, it does open the door for further research by both compiling many disparate sources in an easy-to-navigate directory, as well potentially bringing more attention to an important, albeit severely understudied, part of history.

As previously mentioned, one of the real highlights of the project, and one of the real benefits I gained from the project, was the opportunity to really practice and hone my research skills. In total, throughout my research, I compiled and made notes on over 250

primary documents. With such a quantity of sources and a limited time in which to not only research but also write my final report, I soon had to become efficient at extracting valuable knowledge from my many sources and presenting the notes in such a way that, after having trawled through dozens of more sources, I was able to look back and very quickly regain all of the necessary information. This was certainly not an easy task and the experience gave me invaluable practice in being able to compartmentalise and make use of such an extensive volume of primary research, a skill that has proved crucial many of the essays I have hence written at university, not least of which being my dissertation.

Following on from this, the experience of writing my report was very different from the experience of researching and similarly provided me with invaluable experience in how to construct a coherent and concise argument after a period of extensive primary research. With over 250 primary sources to work with, of course, not all of the information I had found was equally useful, and with my final research report capped at a paltry 3,000 words, I had to make some major value judgments on what information to include, and what would have to be cut. While every source contributed to creating a holistic view of the issue, and were all undoubtedly valuable, at least to some extent, in constructing my final argument, only 18 of the primary sources received direct citations within my final report. All of this is to say that my Laidlaw research project greatly enhanced my research skills and provided me with the know-how to produce long-form scholarly works within an academic context that, at the commencement of the project, I was almost entirely unfamiliar with.

Moving on to my research project, my Leadership in Action experience was similarly fulfilling. My LiA project saw me working with the Charity Retail Association, the only trade association in the country representing the interests of charities and charity shops, as well as a local charity to me, the St. Elizabeth’s Centre, a charity providing specialised care for people with epilepsy and other complex medical needs. The coronavirus pandemic had had a

severely detrimental impact on the charity sector as many shops were forced to close for an extended period of time, denying many charities their most important revenue stream. My project aimed to address this issue by aiding charities in developing new, online approaches to selling, and then subsequently disseminating these new online storefronts to a broader public. Prior to the project, I had never worked in the charity sector before, and being able to perform such important, helpful work within a new and exciting environment was certainly a highlight and, all-in-all, a very fulfilling experience. During my LiA project, I met with a wide range of people from many organisations. Not only did I regularly work directly with the CEO of the CRA, but I also organised meetings with high-ranking representatives for organisations such as Shopiago and Cancer Research UK. Not only did this provide an unparalleled opportunity for networking, but really helped to give me a deeper, holistic view of an industry that, up to that point, I was entirely unfamiliar with.

Another highlight of the project was when I was able to see the outputs and impact of my work. By the end of the project, I had helped streamline and advertise a webpage acting as a directory of dozens of charities' online storefronts. In the process of my work, this directory went from the CRA’s 11th most viewed webpage to their single most viewed webpage by far, an amazing result that really highlighted the impact of my work. Similarly, in the process of advertising the page, it was really exciting to see articles prompted by a press release I had helped produce and disseminate appear in dozens of newspapers, including The Guardian, as well as seeing an article I myself had written published in a lifestyle blog. Being able to visit the St. Elizabeth’s Centre and volunteer my time in a number of their charity shops was similarly a highlight as it really helped to ground my work and show me exactly who and what my work was impacting.

The future impact of my LiA project is also very clear and important. In the short term, my project has driven a considerable amount of attention to charities online storefronts

which, during covid, were forced to develop very quickly and become many charities' main revenue streams. My project has helped these charities to draw in as much money as possible from these online storefronts and, in doing so, has helped them to continue operating efficiently throughout the Covid pandemic, a time during which the aid they provided was as sorely needed as ever. Specifically looking at my work with the St. Elizabeth’s Centre, I was able to rework many of their online storefronts to appear more appealing and professional, as well as helping them to branch out into many different online storefronts, providing an avenue for them to sell goods they had previously struggled to, such as vintage books and clothes when they had only had a single eBay page. St. Elizabeth’s is a small, local charity to me and they were hit very hard by lockdowns and subsequent massive loss of revenue. While their possible online revenue had no chance of matching their losses, it soon became integral to their continuing operation, and my work helped to maximise this revenue during a time of extreme crisis.

In the long term, my work dealing with public relations and advertising has helped make a much broader section of the public aware of the growing option for online charity shopping. Now, while many are reopening their brick-and-mortar shops, charities are continuing to operate their online storefronts, and through my work creating and disseminating articles, social media infographics, and press releases, I have helped to ensure that these online storefronts are able to remain profitable and continue to draw in money for charities hopefully well into the future.

Both my research and my Leadership in Action project have helped to enhance and develop my own leadership in a variety of ways. While my research project was largely conducted on my own, almost all of what I produced during my research was intended for a far broader audience than just myself, especially my public google drive folder compiling my primary research. Because of this, my research project greatly helped to develop my

communication skill, as the documents in this drive had to be usable and useful to not only myself, but other academics who might later draw on the same sources for their own research.

It was my LiA project, however, that had the biggest impact in helping to develop and hone my leadership attributes. Throughout my LiA experience, my collaborative working skills were tested and developed, as was my self-knowledge, and social and cultural awareness. While I was leading the project, many of the people in my team had more experience than me both in the charity sector and with the specific kind of work we were undertaking. During my work with the CRA, one of the very first things I had to develop in my project was a deeper understanding of my own skills and those of my teammates. This understanding allowed for a more effective delegation of tasks and, especially in regards to the production of the press release wherein I had the largest number of people working with me, allowed for the tasks to be completed with the highest quality and efficiency.

Similarly, these skills were tested during my work with the St. Elizabeth’s Centre, as was my ability to act as a critical and creative thinker. At the start of my project, St. Elizabeth’s only had a very small eBay page. Not only was I looking to expand this page, but I was looking to expand their online presence onto other platforms. This required me to quickly develop an understanding of the needs of the charity and which platforms could best support these needs, as well as understand the capabilities of the people I was working with and which platforms they would be able to make the most use out of, especially as they would continue to use these platforms long after I had left at the end of my project. This forced me to think critically about what was necessary for the project to work and consider critically the technical abilities of my teammates, many of whom in this context were older, less tech-savvy volunteers.

The programme as a whole has been invaluable in helping to develop my employability skills and future career prospects. Throughout the programme I have been locating areas of weakness and consistently developing my soft skills. As previously outlined, both my communication and teamwork skills have really been put to the test during both my research and my LiA projects, and continuing to develop these skills by reflecting on my experiences will certainly help me to stand out to future employers. The leadership and ethics masterclasses that I have undertaken as part of the programme have greatly contributed to this active reflection and have helped me to better identify my own values and principles which I will certainly keep in mind when deciding my future career plans.

Similarly, the chance to spend 6 weeks working actively within a professional environment was incredibly valuable. Not only will this undoubtedly help me to stand out in the job market, but it has given me an unparalleled opportunity to experience work in an occupational setting firsthand. This gave me the chance to think critically about what I want for my own future prospects, while also giving me the chance to discuss such issues and questions with people who both have far greater experience than I in the job market and people who are in charge of hiring for large organisations.

For me, this scholarship programme has been one of the most exciting, engaging, and fun experiences to date. I am immensely grateful to have been given such an amazing opportunity and would certainly like to thank the Laidlaw Foundation, as well as all of the staff at Durham University who helped to make my time in this programme, and the time of my scholars, as good as it could be. This has been an incredibly valuable experience, and I am thankful for having been able to undertake it.