During the 2012 academic year, the Nuru Education Program conducted classroom outreach in nine primary schools in Isibania Division, Kuria West District, Kenya. Nuru’s Education Program aims to increase child literacy to the Standard 2 (class 2) level among rural public, primary school students through intensive student-centered teaching and literacy-focused interventions. Workshops were held for …
The Research and Development (R&D) Program has been hard at work developing the different teams of the program: Product Design, Production/Servicing, and Logistics. Here’s a quick overview of what each team has been up to. Product Design: We’ve decided to focus our skills in finding and selecting products that have proven impact. There are many great ideas …
Fresh off the heels of graduation, the Home Visit Strategy Field Officers are diligently on the move, testing their health and persuasive communication skills. As they implement our newly designed monitoring system, they begin to paint a real-time picture of community health and wellness. These Field Officers are tasked with both observing and probing for …
September was the end of the 3rd quarter of Nuru’s operations. During this quarter, the Community Economic Development (CED) program witnessed a dramatic increase in Missingi wa KAPESA (Mwak) basic group savings. Average saving per saver increased by 119% from 54Ksh (Kenyan shillings) per month per saver to 118Ksh. Overall, CED members saved more than …
During the recent teachers’ strike in Kenya that left children out of school for three weeks, our education team took advantage of the down time in our programming to provide intensive training for the new Education Coordinators and conduct strategic planning sessions. Our team has a lot to tackle in the near future. We will …
Local revenue growth + expense management = sustainability A big part of what we’re working on here is staying ‘scrappy’ while growing in size. We aspire to continually find ways to reduce expenses while maximizing impact. Additionally, we’re focused on increasing the amount of revenue we generate from our Income Generating Activities (IGA) program, so …
The Agriculture Program mandate is to create a sustainable economic base for chronic hunger communities. Even amidst the success of thousands of Nuru farmers bringing in a bumper maize crop for the 2012 long rains season, I find myself researching other program interventions to create more impact in the lives of farmers in extreme poverty. …
Measles was the buzzword in the Nuru Healthcare Program last week. Alice Kenyanya, an experienced Nuru Healthcare Field Officer working in the Isibania division discovered the first cases of measles during a routine visit to the household of a Nuru farmer. During the visit, Alice became aware that 8 children were ill. She recognized the …
Here at Leadership, we are gearing up to teach our next training series. Making edits to our curriculum, translating key points, and putting together classroom materials, we are well on our way to begin teaching Nuru Field Officers about the importance of feedback. Feedback is a vital aspect of life here at Nuru Kenya and …
Over the course of the past six weeks, the education program has been dealing with a lot of challenges. Kenya had a nationwide teacher strike that halted our outreach program for about a month. The teachers and government finally came to a resolution and we resumed outreach on October 1st after missing the month of …
A good part of what I’ve been working on recently with Chairman Philip Mohochi is building out our core administrative functions here at Nuru Kenya. Our impact programs (Agriculture, Community Economic Development, Healthcare, and Education) are doing great work in the community; in turn, we need an effective administration that supports them so that they can …
Across Kuria West, farmers are attending our base education events, joining Nuru and gearing up for the 2013 long rains planting season. At the Regional Training Center (the head quarters for Nuru in Kuria), the staff of Nuru Agriculture is busy processing information about new farmers, ordering and organizing inputs for distribution, and strategizing about …
Wow…I forgot how hard this is. The last five weeks have pretty much been a blur since I hit the ground in Boreda, Ethiopia to launch Nuru’s new country project here. It is an exhilarating adventure, but the challenges can be a bit overwhelming at times. I have had several people ask me, “What in …
Well, it has been a while. My team and I were working on trying to develop a more solid perspective on what the purpose of writing these posts is, how frequently we should write them, and what the nature of them should be. I think we have come up with a few good ideas, but …
No matter where you are in the world ‘Graduation Day’ evokes a sense of pride and celebration as it opens the door for a future of subsequent accomplishments. This was the same sentiment felt by the Home Visit Field Officers (FOs) from Kehancha and Isibania Divisions during their recent ceremony. After a busy few weeks …