Veronica Olazabal joins Nuru with a wealth of knowledge and experience from the M&E sector. Veronica earned an M.A. in Anthropology from Columbia University and a dual Masters in Applied Economics and Urban Policy and Planning and a B.A. in Communications from Rutgers University. She has 15 years of professional and academic international experience in Africa, Asia, …
The Nuru Kenya Agriculture program uses a combination of credit, quality inputs, training, field support and group work to help the farmers of Kuria West increase their maize yields. Yet, the program’s work does not end at the time of harvest. The final focus of any rainy season, educating farmers on how to minimize their …
Candice Corvetti hails from a small rural town in the Adirondack mountains, and she is currently pursuing her MBA at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. During her first year of graduate school, Candice worked extensively with Stanford’s d.school to apply design and analytical thinking towards social innovation issues. Prior to graduate school, Candice worked in …
The Leadership Program welcomes Brian Viani and Paige Belt, the new Program Facilitators for Nuru Kenya and Nuru Ethiopia respectively. It struck me how far we have come as an organization and in the Leadership Program this past month as I worked with Brian Viani and Paige Belt to on-board them and prepare them to …
Part of designing an impactful program is learning from other past and present programs’ experiences. There is a wealth of knowledge about “development” that makes up the archives of “development” implementations and theories. The typical ways organizations learn about “development” are by reading about a program in a report or hearing about a program from …
In this edition, I have the privilege of introducing our newest Community Economic Development (CED) Program Facilitator, Mr. Christopher Isele. Chris has joined Nuru Kenya as of May and took over the responsibility of facilitating the CED program by the end of June 2013. Chris was born in Chicago and grew up in New Jersey. …
Nuru’s Education Program has been making huge strides over the past year and especially in the last few months. Despite our growth, one of the key areas that we were looking to strengthen was our curriculum. We have been going to schools and delivering workshops that include reading, writing, and creative activities. While we have …
After months of research, discussion and preparation with TACT to integrate the Telerivet Short Message Service (SMS) platform into our developing Salesforce database, we have sent our inaugural message: Karibu NuruSMS! Nuru itawatumia ujumbe kuhusu afya, kilimo na bidhaa mpya na hudumu. Kukataa huu ujumbe wa Nuru tuma STOP. Mbele Daima na Nuru! Or for us …
Jane Omanga has been working as the District Manager (DM) with the Leadership program since April 2013. Although she is fairly new with us, one of the first things you may notice about her is her approachable nature. She is always smiling and willing to listen intently to anyone who may cross her path. The …
Since the mid-twentieth-century, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental organizations have been active in development projects throughout the underdeveloped world. Most of these interventions have been high-budget, top-down approaches devised in office buildings in major world cities with very little collaboration – and typically only symbolic collaboration – with nationals in the countries in which they …
Healthcare is on the move! The success of the program in our first two divisions has created great demand in Mabera, where Nuru farmers are eagerly awaiting the first home visits from the Healthcare Field Officers. The original date for scaling to Mabera was pushed back because the team felt that we had to stabilize …
Two years ago, the impact programs at Nuru were still expected to generate their own revenue to fund operations. Shortly thereafter, the Income Generating Activities (IGA) program was born to bring all these projects together under the management of a business-minded team. One year ago, I arrived in Kenya for the first time to take …
It’s hard to believe that my year here with Nuru Kenya is coming to a close. The work I have done and the relationships I have made over the year have been some of the most rewarding and remarkable experiences I have ever had. In the past year I’ve watched our Kenyan M&E team of …
Sustainable intensification offers a practical approach to producing more food with less environmental impact. A recent review of the subject, Sustainable Intensification: A New Paradigm for African Agriculture, spurred a wave of associated posts about the topic. In this blog, I reflect on this report from the Montpellier Panel in light of Nuru Kenya’s Agriculture …
Great things are happening in Nuru’s education program, but sometimes the day-to-day stories and improvements get lost in the shuffle. Two members of Nuru’s Education Team wrote short stories from their experiences in our outreach program during the First Term of the 2013 school year. Here they are: Story By: Joseph Ginono It is …