The Award
Award: Bristol Hub Research Innovation Fund Seedcorn
Project Period: 1st February, 2024 – 31st July 2024.
Project title and start: Identification of and Intervention in Gambling Effects Among Vulnerable Groups
in Public Universities in Kenya
Funder: Gamble Aware (Company Number 4384279) (Charity Number – England & Wales 1093910) (Charity Number – Scotland SC049433) whose registered office is at Pennine Place, 2a Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0HF. “Funder”
Awarding Party: University of Bristol (exempt charity with Royal Charter number RC000648)
whose registered office is Beacon House, Queen’s Road, Bristol, BS8 1QU “UoB” . UoB Ref: 2023 - 7454
Awardee: Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (JOOUST), P.O BOX 210- 40601 – BONDO, Kenya “Awardee”
Meet out Team
- Gregory Jumah- PI
- Charles Omoke
- Joseph Bosire
- Ruth Otienoh
- Henry Onderi
- Emily Ondondo
- Pamela Raburu
- George Otieno
- Established in July 2022
- Based at Bristol University in the UK that established Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research.
- A community of academics and Hub for cutting-edge interdisciplinary research relating to gambling harms
- Aims to deliver significant impact on the gambling research landscape, both within Great Britain and across the globe, by bringing new disciplines, theoretical perspectives and methodologies into gambling harms research.
- Has a broad view of gambling to include newer gambling-like products and practices such as open loot boxes, esports betting, real money video gaming, token wagering and social casino spending and trading apps e.g. bitcoin.
- The SEHSS has a research group, JSSRCI which has networks that includes researchers from Makerere university from where we learnt about this call.
- There was debate about whether issues of gambling lie within our research domain. There was concurrence that it is an issue especially for students in our universities and cuts across disciplines.
- Grants for this call are awarded to academic staff and PhD students with their supervisors’ permission at Higher Educational Institutions. One of the objectives of JSSRCI is to mentor young researchers and there we settled on Mr. Jumah Gregory Nyongesa of the department of SEND, with the permission of Prof. Omoke as his supervisor, to be the P.I. for the project.
- The next award by the same awarding body is the strategic awards that start in August and end July of the next year worth £50,000. The plan is to scale this up to include more universities and apply for this grant to start in August 2024.
Gambling exists in various forms among staff and students in the Kenyan public universities with adverse effects among vulnerable groups including Persons with Disabilities, low cadre employees and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Despite being discouraged due to its perceived harmful effects, gambling continues to thrive among the vulnerable groups as a source of income, recreation, speculative competition and relief of anxiety and despair. Consequently, it becomes addictive, creating harmful psycho-social effects with negative impacts on productivity. This project, therefore, seeks to identify the magnitude of gambling effects among the vulnerable groups at JOOUST and devise strategies for intervention.
- To identify the harmful effects of gambling among vulnerable groups through questionnaires, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and interviews
- To devise intervention strategies to manage gambling harms.
- To develop a policy intervention framework for managing gambling harms among vulnerable university staff and students
This project will involve vulnerable students and staff. This will lead to more new data.
- Data generated from profiling of vulnerable students and staff in terms of population dynamics of the participants on gender, age and religion that engage in gambling
- Creating awareness on gambling harms among vulnerable students and staff at the university
- Development of training manuals for capacity building to mitigate gambling harms on vulnerable students and staff.
- Development of manuals for mental health and psycho-social intervention/support
- Production of educational communication materials (ECM) to disseminate vital information about gambling and its harmful effects on vulnerable students and staff.
- Development of a policy intervention framework for managing gambling among vulnerable university staff and students.
Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research
PARTNERS
Bristol Hub Research Innovation Fund Seedcorn
Gamble Aware (Company Number 4384279) (Charity Number – England & Wales 1093910) (Charity Number – Scotland SC049433) whose registered office is at Pennine Place, 2a Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0HF. “Funder”
University of Bristol (exempt charity with Royal Charter number RC000648) whose registered office is Beacon House, Queen’s Road, Bristol, BS8 1QU