“You need to focus in one area.” “Holistic Interventions simply don’t work…just ask the large, dinosaur NGOs that have tried them and failed over the last 40 years.” “Integrated models waste resources, create dependency, and cannot become sustainable.” “You can’t be all things to all people. All holistic models achieve is dilution of real impact …
To perform a census in rural, remote Kenya visiting thousands of people in one month is my first task as the new Research Program Manager for Nuru International. At least sweet bananas are in season. My name is Jamie Frederick and for the next several months I will be working with our projects in Research, …
Since the inception of our seed project in 2008, Nuru has sought to partner with local leaders who share Nuru’s vision and possess an intimate understanding of the communities we want to impact. This meaningful collaboration with local counterparts in each of our five program areas has proven to be essential for our success. Nuru’s …
In Kenya, there are two rainy seasons a year. Farmers take advantage of this to plant two crops. When the rains are late in coming, farmers must rush to plant one crop and harvest before it’s time to plant the next. The rain brings life here in Kenya and when the long rains start, there …
After a month of preparation and training in the US and a month of transition in Kenya, I’m so excited to have finally taken over Nuru’s Healthcare program from Lindsay Cope. Lindsay did an amazing job training and mentoring the field officers and community health workers (CHWs), improving the effectiveness of their home visits and …
The Water Crisis in Poor Rural Communities When we think about water, we often picture a glass of clear water or a cartoon-like drawing of a blue lake or river. But, these images are far from reality. A more accurate picture would show dirt, scary looking bugs and poop. People living in remote rural areas …
I do my best thinking on the back of a boda. Each ride offers a magnified view into my surroundings, and induces thoughts that would never be provoked from a car or even on foot. It is a quickened examination of the vibrant reality that has become my life for the past 9 months. Despite …
I thought in this post that I would take some time to describe Nuru’s agriculture model and talk about some of the ideas behind why we have taken this approach. There are two main problems we are tackling through Nuru’s agriculture model: chronic hunger with a lack of an economic byields and access to fair …
Alasdair Cohen, the lead author of the MPAT, is coming to the project site to lead our evaluation in May! This is such exciting news! We are excited for a million reasons, but most notably we are glad that the Nuru site will be a test-bed for innovation in poverty evaluation. As I have mentioned …
So I’ve been on the ground here in Kenya for about 9 months now, and FT6 has arrived to start taking over for us. Since June, we’ve trained around 500 new farmers in the basics of WASH, tapped into a demand for handwashing stations, and started to train our staff on a participatory based WASH …
The time has come to transition to the new foundation team. The new team arrived a week and a half ago equipped with new ideas, fresh perspectives and diverse experience. The transition is providing all of us with an opportunity to step back and reflect on what has been accomplished and what remains to be …
Ben Lyon is Vice President of Business Development for Kopo Kopo, which offers a software-as-a-service platform for integrating mobile money with core banking and enterprise resource planning software. The Microfinance Revolution Microfinance has taken a serious beating recently. With news of massive loan defaults and even suicides continuing to pour out of India and an order by …
Continued … The reason we weren’t comfortable doing that is that our definition, in the end and through that process, did not make any sense. Extreme poverty, according to that old system, meant a specific number of health centers, a community-wide maternal mortality rate, a community-wide under-five mortality rate, a specific average maize yield, a …
Ed Cable is the Mifos Community Manager – he oversees the Mifos open source community, connecting its members worldwide with the tools, support, and engagement needed to successfully create a world of 3 Billion Maries. He works to ensure that users can smoothly implement Mifos, local support providers can find MFIs in need of support, …
Last week the local Ministry of Health’s Nutrition Team officiated a CHW (Community Health Worker) training on IYCF. Training materials were developed in conjunction with Path, University Research Co., LLC, and UNICEF. Here is an account by one of our most astute Field Officers, Paul Mogosi. This will be the last Healthcare training Paul will …