Welcome
This is our seventh e-newsletter for the GRTA project. Covid-19 has interrupted activities on all four sub-projects, but teams in all the partner institutions have shown remarkable resilience to find new ways of working. Whether it has been adapting to home working, refocussing efforts on Covid-19 action or re-organising plans for engagement, each sub-project is adjusting to the new normal.
Grant extension
Thank you for letting us know how the pandemic has affected your work so far. The admin team are still awaiting guidance from the funder UKRI regarding a grant extension. We are still planning to submit an application for a 6 month extension, which would bring the end date to 30 Sept 2021.
Finance reminders
Please send through your invoices to grta@uea.ac.uk. If you need a reminder of the guidelines for reimbursement you can have another look at the guidelines that have been shared with you by email before.
Selected project updates
Child Malnutrition
At UEA, our laboratories are gradually re-opening following the lockdown. In this blog, Research Associate Thomas McDonagh (pictured above) describes some of the innovative methods the Child Malnutrition team at UEA are using to create customized supplements which are easy for children to consume:
Developing innovative supplements for child malnutrition at UEA
Family Literacy
You can read about the diversity of teaching, policy engagement and research developed by the Family Literacy partners in the last few months and find out what the teams have been up to during the pandemic:
UEA UNESCO Chair Newsletter in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation June 2020
Microplastics
The GRTA project has funded five new microplastic analysis kits for institutions in Malaysia to develop a monitoring network for microplastic pollution across the country. A video tutorial for using the microplastic analysis kits produced by the GRTA film-making team is now available for members of the network to view on the Swinburne University website. Currently the Malaysian microplastic network has 10 members, shown on this map, and a new website launched by the Universiti Malaysia Terengganu.
Sustainable Food Systems
Whilst the lockdown has prevented the project partners from visiting local communities in India, fortunately the GRTA filmmaking team visited in March to provide training and equipment to community groups. One of these groups, a youth group called Lahanti Club, have been using the lockdown as an opportunity to produce a number of videos about locally foraged food products:
Hannah, Deborah, Elettra and Ane
The GRTA administration team at UEA