The people I work with at Nuru inspire me daily. Everyone is so committed to the farmers we are working for. Joseph Itaroro is no exception. He works tirelessly as the Healthcare Field Manager in Kehancha Division. Joseph is at his best when he is meeting with the Nuru Healthcare home visit Field Officers that he supervises. As they report their challenges and successes each week Joseph is always ready with a hypothetical question to help the group think through answers to challenges or a probing question to get to the heart of the matter.
When asked about himself, Joseph says:
I’m humble. Someone can tell me difficult things and I am not annoyed. I am trained on how to approach someone who is harsh and who is not harsh. I am a servant leader. Not taking advantage. As a manager, I am serving the front line workers at Nuru – the Field Officers.
When asked about his first impressions of Nuru, Joseph said:
I heard about Nuru and that they were coming to fight extreme poverty. When they came to a health center near me and talked to the farmers in the area, I saw how Nuru helped the farmers by showing them how to plant maize and how to have a good harvest. During that time, I strived to know what is Nuru and how does Nuru work? It was [then that] I heard Nuru had come to eradicate poverty, whereby they were training people on how to plant and on health issues and proving safe water to the community. I felt it in myself to join and gain that information from Nuru so that I could help the community also.
So, when they came to my area whereby they wanted to have leaders first to work with them, I was working as a community health worker at a health center. I wanted to go out to the community with Nuru and visit the households to tell them the importance of preventing diseases.
So I applied, interviewed, and joined Nuru as a Healthcare home visit Field Officer. And during that time I was trained by Nuru Healthcare to see how they conduct household visits. In that time I was on the volunteer period.
I was later promoted to Field Manager. Now, I am supervising Field Officers on the prevention of diseases by applying tailored interpersonal communication to ensure that Nuru farmers are using the healthy behaviors. Now the community is learning how to prevent diseases. I am very happy to see the Nuru farmers improving the health of their households as we work with them. For example they are now knowing the importance of using latrines, drinking safe water, sleeping under mosquito nets and pregnant mothers are attending prenatal care visits and their children are being fully immunized.
Joseph is a dedicated servant leader, ready to assist his Field Officers and the Nuru farmer families they work with using kindness and understanding. He is devoted to working towards Nuru’s mission of ending extreme poverty in remote rural areas and to improving his community.