Last week I promised to tell you about my second two priorities during my four months here in Kenya, and I fully intended to keep that promise. But, a few really exciting stories I heard this week changed my mind, and I think you’ll forgive me if I instead share what I learned from the …
Someone sent me this TED talk about happiness this week…..and it got me thinking a little bit about my job. One way to describe the Nuru Research Team’s purpose is that we are supposed to ensure that Nuru is doing the right things. We are supposed to ensure that the work that is happening on …
The mission of the Nuru International Education Program is twofold. One is to create communities that understand and value education as a tool set that can be used to improve individual and family situations. The second is to foster communities that act on this understanding by pursuing education as a short- and long-term solution to …
On Thursday, I spent the afternoon in Taragwiti (one of the villages in which Nuru works) at a Nuru Savings Club meeting. We are testing some basic banking transactions using cell phones. Just so we are clear, I am not talking about iphones, blackberries, or anything too high-tech. We have, instead, chosen to use the …
Wednesday night we were at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA. We had about 75 people in attendance at our event in the Wolff Auditorium in the building that houses Gonzaga’s School of Business Administration. A couple of professors actually made attendance to our event mandatory for their classes. Throughout the presentation, the BH2O+ sign up sheet went around the auditorium. And …
His name is Chris Doggett, and outside of this blog, you may never know his name or hear his story. In addition to heading up our Seattle BH2O+ planning team, he is a Captain in the US Marine Corps. He served in Iraq during one of his deployments. Much like Jake, he saw the tangible …
Last night, I sat in the Street Bean in Seattle, reflecting on what seemed like a past life. In 2006 and 2007, I was your regular Seattleite. I lived a Greenlake, worked for “the man”, and hung out with friends in Belltown. I cared about money, retirement, and being heard. I worked 60 hours a …
Well Lenore has almost 10,000 new miles, we have been through 17 states, and we have consumed enough coffee to float a small battleship. I figured if I were going to be drinking that much coffee I should probably stop making so much trash from all the empty cups… I picked up the mug that …
We’re out to make a huge impact this year through each BH2O+ event! Our two primary goals are to attract a high turnout to each event and to raise significant funds for Nuru’s sustainable projects in Kuria, Kenya. In 2009, BH2O+ attracted 800 students and raised enough funding to drill four deep wells, each placed …
Last week the Nuru Tour Team visited Stanford University. It was exciting to be on Stanford’s beautiful campus and to see where Nuru began. We had a Nuru Tour event at CoHo, the Stanford Coffee House, on Wednesday night. Once we got everything set up for our presentation, we realized that most of the people …
In order to make our projects truly sustainable, Nuru works with the community to create innovative revenue generation models that will eventually be able to meet all the expenses of the project – making the community truly financially self-sufficient. Many times, these ideas come from our Kenyan team. Philip and his team are incredibly resourceful …
My name is Thomas Hong and I am here in Kuria West as the new Education Program Manager. I have been here almost three weeks observing and learning about the Education program as well as about all Nuru programs. I have also met more people than I can remember while trying to adjust to not …
You all know that the world is flat. If you don’t, you need to read Thomas Friedman’s book, “The World Is Flat.” Basically he says that cheap communication (i.e. the Internet) has “flattened” the world; barriers of space, geography and culture are becoming irrelevant because of the ease of communication.
Outrunning the Rain Check in with the team is at 8am – we stand in a circle and report in brief what we did yesterday and what we’ll be doing today. It helps with the logistics for that day. After check in I’m scarfing down oatmeal and coffee, trying to send an email to my …
Deep Well Buy-in Program Over the past two weeks, I managed to fill up an entire notebook, drain two pens, and completely cover my wall in fluorescent-colored sticky notes (this neurotic mess is featured in the photo). My Design Thinking training informed me that the very first thing I needed to do upon arrival back …