It seems that is the theme of my life, at least in the past five years since I left my comfortable home and life in suburban Maryland in the summer of 2005 for a country in Central Asia that most people never even heard of. After spending over eight months in Uzbekistan I left in …
Friends, Family and Fearless Leaders Nuru seeks to empower impoverished communities to become entirely self-sustaining within five years. To make this happen, we focus on two main areas of sustainability in order to pass the walk away test: financial sustainability and leadership sustainability. Both are absolutely critical to enabling our communities to be completely independent …
It’s that time of year again. The maize is growing, the rain has stopped, harvest is near, and we are transitioning. The funny time when 6 (or in my case 12) months of knowledge and learning and experience are supposed to be transferred from one person to another. The first time I gave the program over …
The end of my rotation is quickly approaching. Vivian, my counterpart in the CED Program, arrives on Monday, then I will be transitioning out of the project. I am set to fly out on 11 July. Time always flies on our Foundation Team tours. The past 5 months have gone by more quickly than summer …
Over a year ago, we launched our Rainwater Catchment Pilot Project to help us answer the question – Is household rainwater catchment a sustainable water supply solution for Kuria? Our Water and Sanitation Field Officers have done a great job of diligently maintaining the units and monitoring the water storage volume, water demand, and the …
Killer Mold There are many highs and lows in this job. You never really know what’s going to be coming at you around the corner. That makes for a life that is truly exhilarating, but also one that can be a bit uncertain or stressful at best… and edge-of-your-seat scary at worst. For me, I …
Guinea! Burkina Fasao! …No, it couldn’t be Burkina. Somalia? Malawi! The contestants shouted. Last Saturday, after coming back from a World Cup game, we sat on the front porch and played a game. There was some disagreement about what the largest city in the world was. Thomas on his iPod Touch looked up the answers …
Social Capital: It is rare that earth-shattering news is actually delivered with earth shattering. Late last night, in those wee hours that are technically morning, we awoke to the sound of crashing, booming, and something like an explosion. These were the kind of sounds that aren’t accidental. Terror was the first thing that wrestled me …
How did they do that? This video from Solidarités International left me with goose bumps. What a compelling way to communicate how the water that we rely on to sustain us can be an agent of death – dirty water kills more people than wars have. But, there is hope! According to the World Health …
It was quite a strange site as I sat on back of a boda (motorcycle taxi) on my way to Kehancha early one morning last week. We had set up a meeting with the District Education Officer (DEO) to speak to him about all that we did for choosing a school to sponsor. We needed …
Healthcare Bang For Buck Last week on a lunch break, I was nerd-ing out as I am wont to do. It just so happened that this time, my forays into the depths of the interweb (browsing the internet) and, against all odds, found something of worth. I found “Evaluation of current strategies and future priorities …
My understanding of success for Nuru in Kenya is if, when the Western staff exits in five years, Nuru Kenya will continue to function and scale to other parts of the country eradicating extreme poverty along the way. Many international NGOs have worked in developing countries, producing great impact at first but once the NGO …
Last week I told you a story about a Nuru leader that has me excited. Andrew is just one person among many potential leaders. In order to make it possible for communities to become entirely self-sustaining within five years, we focus on two areas of finances and leadership. This week I am going to mention …
The roof was tin, but I could not see it because of the newspapers cut into snowflakes hanging from it. The walls were of mud, but veiled with advertisements and colorful newspaper front pages. The floors also were of mud, but clean, compacted swept mud; you could walk barefoot and not get dirty. We talked with …
Continuing on with the structure of last week’s blog, I have divided this blog into two sections: social capital and financial capital. This division is meant to divide business from pleasure- or living from working in rural Kenya.