Jane is married and has three teenage children. Since April of 2013, Jane has been living in rural and remote Isibania, about 248 miles (400 km) from her family in Nairobi. Jane understands the sacrifice needed to ensure her children have a better life. Jane Omanga is Nuru Kenya’s Leadership Program Manager and one of …
#MyMomIsStrongBecause through her struggles and hard work, she gave me a better life than the one she had. My mother, Lydia, hails from Embu in eastern Kenya and was born to a family of twenty-six siblings from three co-wives. Her story is one of breaking many barriers, including breaking the generational cycle of poverty experienced …
Three generations of Nuru donors—Jean Ghera, daughter Heather Warren and granddaughter Olivia Warren—celebrate a family of strong women. What Heather Warren admires about her mom, Jean Ghera: #MyMomIsStrongBecause she has faith and hope. She endures hard times with a positive mental attitude and when she prays, she listens for God’s response. She is a good listener. My mom also takes …
Elijah Wambura, a Nuru Kenya field manager, shares his overflowing love for his mother. #MyMomIsStrongBecause she offers something different—different from my father and any other person. We can talk about co-parenting as a “fact” of life but the “truth” remains that mothers carry babies in their wombs from conception to birth tirelessly. If it were me, …
Kavita Shah, a longtime fan of Nuru International who co-founded @getmeWITHIN with her brother, shares what she loves about her mother, Lata Krishnan, an early Nuru investor and the CFO of Shah Capital Partners. My mom is many things. She is East African, Indian and American. She is a strong, driven entrepreneur and a caring, loving …
#MyMomIsStrongBecause she never, ever gave up when things got hard. Not before, not now, not ever. One of my most vivid memories from the Marine Corps was a particularly vicious hill called Recon. When training for a tough physical endurance test or trying to get back into fighting shape following a tough deployment, I would …
As the world celebrates World Book and Copyright Day on Saturday, April 23rd, members of the Nuru Education team reflect on what books influenced them as children and why books are important to us all. What was your favorite book or series when you were a child? “My favorite storybook growing up was Things Fall …
One of my favorite book series when I was growing up was C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia.” In these books, children from war-torn England were able to explore the magical land of Narnia with all sorts of creatures and places they had never seen. To me, these books presented a metaphor for many storybooks. …
The World Health Organization reports a shocking statistic: “Every day, approximately 830 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.” If you counted up all of these moms, it’s the same as wiping out the entire population of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Anchorage, Alaska or Cincinnati, Ohio in a year’s time. Even ONE family losing its …
What do you get when you bring nearly 2,700 attendees from countries all over the world—representing international NGOs, ministries of education, academic institutions and for-profit educational companies—together in one place? In one acronym: CIES. From March 6-10, Nuru attended the 60th annual meetings of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES) in Vancouver, B.C. Nuru’s focus …
As Melinda Gates points out in the 2016 Gates Annual Letter, collecting, treating and using water is a large contributor to “time poverty”—the deprivation of opportunity because of the time spent attending to one’s basic needs. In most places in the US, clean drinkable water flows from the kitchen sink and even down the toilet …
Nuru prioritizes feedback. In 2015, the UN ratified the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals which defined 17 specific goals for ending poverty. The goal that relates most to the Nuru Leadership Program is number 16, which focuses on promoting “peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development…at all levels.” Nuru’s training on “the importance of feedback” is applicable …
From the perspective of a Nuru farmer in Kenya, it may seem like International Women’s Day has nothing to do with her. In rural areas, limited economy, poor infrastructure and low education levels contribute to communities having limited or no access to social media to follow @WomensDay or #IWD2016. Despite the swell of online conversation, she …
IRVINE, CA—Nuru International is proud to welcome its newest member, Beth Van Schaack, to its board of directors. Her extensive background in international human rights, international criminal law and atrocities prevention will add significant value as Nuru tackles increasingly complex challenges in expanding to highly fragile states and achieving its mission to end extreme poverty …
VANCOUVER, BC—The Comparative International Education Society (CIES) is holding CIES 2016 at Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre in Vancouver, BC from March 6-10, 2016. This event is hosted by The University of Hong Kong: Faculty of Education and Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) and marks the 60th anniversary of the annual conference. With over 500 sessions …