After hearing from Francis and John, two of the three members of the Leadership Program here at Nuru Kenya, Paul, our third member, gives his thoughts on the difficult task of giving assessments in Kenya. As part of our work in the Leadership Program, our team is tasked with the job of training our Kenyan …
In my last blog, I mentioned that Nuru Kenya has three income-generation activities: agribusiness, a dairy farm, and health commodities sales. In this blog, I will give you more details about agribusiness, including what challenges we face and how the business benefits the communities and Nuru. Our agribusiness unit buys and sells maize. Each year …
The purpose of the Nuru Household (HH) survey is to collect data to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions conducted by Nuru International’s programs. The survey primarily addresses Nuru’s Healthcare and Water & Sanitation programs. Due to the holistic nature of Nuru’s model, the survey also aims to assess a few outcomes that result from …
It is Wednesday, November 9 in Kampala, Uganda. The morning is bright and it seems like it might be a rain-free day in a month that seems to be excessively, even dangerously, wet. It is a typical day for Betty Kyazike, the acclaimed Tula Branch Manager for Living Goods. She prepares for the ‘In Service Training’ for …
Nuru’s Agriculture Program provisions small loans of agricultural inputs (fertilizers and seed) to farmers and trains farmers to generate a permanent and significant increase in crop yields. The beginning of the long rains season (December to July) marks the busiest time for the agriculture program and for millions of Kenyan farmers who are investing in …
Does everyone know that? Well, we do. As you might have read here on this blog before, we are trying to accomplish the Monitoring and Evaluation of our work with two major types of metrics: Poverty Metrics and Program Metrics. Poverty Metrics are means by which we’re assessing the overall state of the communities where …
In September, with the help of our Kenyan staff, we developed the loan service to our Msingi wa KAPESA (basic group savings) program. We have learned a lot of lessons over the past three years and have now been able to design a stalwart program. However, because of what we have learned, the rules and …
So I’ve arrived in Kenya for another rotation with Nuru’s Water and Sanitation Program, and it’s amazing to see how much the staff has developed since I last left. As Nicole stated in one of her last blogs, our team has complete trust in each other. Even when constructing demonstration latrines in the community, passers-by …
Greetings from Isibania! It’s difficult to believe that it’s been a month since Lindsey Kneuven left Kenya. I’m so honored and humbled to have the opportunity to play a part in supporting Nuru’s Education Program and have been loving every busy and exciting moment of my time here. I came on at a very interesting time …
Nuru’s agriculture program mobilizes and trains thousands of farmers every year in October and November in anticipation of the long rains maize harvest season (January to July). The agriculture program issues loans of agricultural inputs (maize seeds and fertilizers) and trains farmers to use them. Nuru equips extremely poor smallholder agriculturalists with the knowledge and tools to …
There is so much going on here in the field, and a large part of that is program metrics, which Gaby mentioned in the last M&E blog. But I want to hold off on writing about those for a bit and discuss something that I feel is as equally exciting and important: professional development. We began training …
There is an old Chinese proverb that is an inspiring message for sustainability and education. Most can probably quote it and explain the virtues of it: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Nuru International certainly touts this same …
Mbuya Mohoyere? That’s “How are you?” in Kikurian – a language that has SO many greetings, that even though I’ve been here four times, I have yet to master them all. I’m grateful to be transitioning with Laura Itzkowitz and to have another opportunity to see just how much things have changed here in Kuria. Here …
I couldn’t resist the opportunity for some alliteration. We have a lot going on, and I wanted to fill you in on all of it. I’ll start with the last thing: personnel changes. Jamie Frederick is back here in the States getting ready to start working with us as a domestic staffer full-time. As you …
At Nuru International, we follow the Design Thinking school of thought and are dedicated to innovation, iteration and the openness to question our model. But it’s hard. It means a constant vigilance over your desired impact and continually reevaluating what you are doing in order to ensure you are meeting your goals in the best …