Meet Rogonga, M&E Field Manager for Nuru Kenya

I recently interviewed my counterpart, Rogonga Augustine, about his experience working for Nuru and his recent work with the MPAT. He’s featured on the right in the photo above, training enumerators to implement the MPAT survey.

Hi Rogonga! Tell us a few things about yourself, such as your age, your favorite food and your favorite book.
Sure. I’m 24 years old. My favorite food is chicken. My favorite book is Applied Physics.

What’s your role at Nuru? And how long have you worked for Nuru?
I am the Monitoring & Evaluation Field Manager for Nuru Kenya. I’ve worked for Nuru for 5 months, including attending a one-month intensive M&E short course at AMREF in Nairobi.

What are the biggest projects you’ve done so far in your time at Nuru?
I’ve completed a census of two sublocations and the implementation of Multidimensional Poverty Assessment Tool.

Why did you want to work for Nuru?
I wanted to work for Nuru because Nuru works directly with the community. And I like working directly with people. That’s what I hoped – to work so close with people.

M&E requires spending a lot of time planning and working in front of a computer. Does your work with M&E still give you time to work with people?
I’ve been working with the community so far because I’ve been collecting data from people in the communities. Definitely I’ve been working with people.

You pretty much ran the MPAT single-handedly after Alasdair left.  How did that go?
I planned myself well.  I would prepare before the usual work time. I would keep my daily to do list so I would know what I had to do at a particular time. When Alasdair left, I knew I had more responsibilities so I became more careful and knew I had to work harder to get things done.  

And you successfully finished; congratulations!  What were some highlights of the MPAT?
I was very happy using the tool. We were the first using it in Africa. I was happy about that. And I was also able to make the team move. I mobilized the team; so we worked together as a team. I didn’t work as a single person. So the other enumerators and supervisors, we helped each other. We were all happy about using the tool.

It sounds like you had a good team. You said you were happy using the tool?
I think the tool is a good tool because it’s exhaustive in measuring all of those components and subcomponents of poverty in the community.

We hear you plant trees in your spare time.  How many do you have so far? And why do you plant so many trees?
I have over 5,000 trees so far. And reasons why I plant trees are because 1) I love nature, and 2) it’s an investment – a long-term investment. They will help me in the future.

What are some things your M&E team is going to do in the future?
Our M&E team in the future – we hope to set up a very comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system for all of the programs Nuru works with – agriculture, health, CED, water & sanitation, education and even leadership. We also intend to set up a comprehensive database management system to have all of our data together so it can be easily accessed. 

It sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you!
Yes, we do. But I’m up to the task!

Thank you for your time!
Thank you, too!