The weeks before I left for Kenya were some of the most hectic of my life. I moved out of my apartment, transferred my things to storage, packed for my journey, and saw my family for a few days. I did all of this in the midst of finishing my dissertation, defending it on May …
To pick up from where Gaby left off on her last “to be continued” post, our M&E team was juggling the idea of using baseline data from three sublocations (that we collected in Nov. 2011) to represent a larger geographic region to which our healthcare program is soon scaling. We recently concluded that we will …
With our new expat team (FT8) two weeks into their roles, we’re feeling really good about the progress that will be made over the next year. Our team’s ‘transition’ began on our arrival to Isebania on June 1st. We spent the next four weeks working closely with the exiting expat team (FT7), first learning from …
The past month has felt like a whirlwind and I am happy to say that I have landed firmly on my feet in Kuria West, one of the most beautiful places I have ever had the privilege to live. Taking over the blogosphere torch and that of Leadership program manager initially felt like a daunting task, but …
Well, in our last post you heard from Kelly Gannon, our newest M&E Fellow/Program Manager in the field. She has, of course, been doing a bang-up job so far. She has made the rare transition from a Stateside position to a field position. We have had plenty of people do the reverse – transition from …
It seems like we do this every couple of months and if feels like just yesterday when I came and was transitioning with Chelsea and Tanner to become the new Leadership Program Manager. Even though it was my second rotation in Kuria, I was stepping into a new program to work with a couple of …
(This post is written by our M&E Fellow, Kelly Gannon, and posted by me, Gabrielle Blocher) I have spent much of this first month absorbing and observing as much as I can during our transition from FT7 to FT8. It’s been great to connect the work I was doing remotely from the US since February …
It is such a pleasure in my last two blogs to be able to introduce you to the CED team. Last month, I introduced you to Andrew Chacha, the CED Program Leader. This month is my last month on the ground. I am passing the baton to Elias Fanta, the new CED Program Manager. We …
As we are gearing up to start the R&D program, I thought it would be nice to share this inspirational video of our field manager’s six year old son, Abedi. One branch of the R&D program is product design, which will require a lot of empathy and creativity from our staff. Abedi shows us just …
In our last program blog Renew and Renovate: Nuru International Healthcare’s New Year Lindsay Cope wrote about our Training Manager, District Manager, and new Program Manager. We are so grateful to have them as part of our team. And this week, I have been so proud of our entire staff in their display of understanding …
If you spend any time around these blog-parts (sounds gross), you have might been exposed to the fact that we have characterized our current set of operational programs that are up and running in Kenya three ways: We have two sustainability programs, and those are the Leadership Program and IGA R&D and M&E are support programs …
“Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that is life, and things will come your way.” That was said by the Italian film director Federico Fellini decades ago, but sprung to my mind earlier today as I observed a classroom of first graders approaching a small box …
Christmas in July? Sure, a common idiom. New Year’s in June, however, has less of a ring to it. But, after my recent return from the field I saw and felt a new invigoration in our team—perhaps the sparked light for which Nuru was named. Despite the fact that as an organization we operate on …
We had a couple of questions from a donor this week about our third-party evaluations. We have done two of them officially. Here is a slightly edited version of how I put it to the donor: We have conducted two third-party evaluations, and the results of both can be obtained by emailing me at gabrielle.blocher@nuruinternational.org. …
This month, I have the privilege of introducing Andrew Chacha, the CED Program Leader. Andrew has been with the CED program for 2 ½ years now and has risen quickly from Field Officer to Program Leader because of his talent and passion for changing his community. It is an honor to be able to work …