The 9th interdisciplinary forensic summer school is to boost “Forensic Science in East Africa from Theory to practice”

The 9^th Interdisciplinary Forensic Summer School is being held under the theme “Forensic Science in East Africa: From Theory to Practice”, this annual event is taking place in Kigali from Nov 29^th to Dec 3^rd, 2021.

Director of Center for Medical Genetics in University of Rwanda Prof.Dr Leon Mutesa, said that this 9^th edition will bring the changes by improving the Forensic Science in East Africa practically.

“Actually the Forensic Science summer school we are organizing today is ninth edition, which will boost Forensic science in East Africa from theory to practice. We have made impressive improvement in this field almost ten years ago, we didn’t have the skilled people and we didn’t have capacity for test DNA and other types of this discipline, but now we made incredible improvement for how this program is supporting Rwanda in various domains of Forensic science especially for training National Police college scientists, so today we are able to carry out all of the samples we sent outside previously, because most of that was not tested in Rwanda, through this event with partnership we are improving skills about it practically.” Prof.Dr Mutesa Said.

Prof.Dr. Benjamin Ondruschka, Director of Institute of Legal Medicine in University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in German, which is Partner of this annual event, said that this project is vital for Rwanda and his Country to boost Forensic science skills.

”We need to work closely together to improve Forensic science with Rwanda, our partnership is very important because will develop skills for every participant either from Rwanda or German, we are trying to change academic experience for Forensic science by building scientific practices”.

Participants of the 9^th Interdisciplinary Forensic Summer School believe that they have gained valuable knowledge that will help them in their studies and work.

Yvette Tumukunde Mutabazi, Student in College of Medicine and Health Sciences from University of Rwanda said: “Some of benefits of these trainings include meeting with other fellow students from different universities, sharing knowledge with other partners from different backgrounds. I have learned a lot since 2015, what we are learning is helping us to gain the knowledge that will help us in our future work.”

The Forensic Summer School is organized by the College of Medicine and Health Sciences in collaboration with Kampala International University and Institute of Legal Medicine, University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany from the last 10 years.

This is the ninth time this has happened because in 2020 it did not happen due to the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic.