What can one do with access to all the world’s information? How would that knowledge help farmers in rural Kenya? What if they could easily communicate with anyone else in the world? Before I attempt to answer these questions, really think about them. This is a period in human history without precedent. Seriously, take a …
Sorry for the long radio silence! We are back from Africa, and we’re hard at work synthesizing the results of Evaluation 1. Two weeks ago I spent one full week building an excel model to analyze the data our evaluators gathered in the field. It’s got some glitches and some errors at this point, but …
Education Program Manager Chelsea Barabas and friends show off the brand new mural in an early education classroom in Kuria.
If you ask anyone in Kuria “siku za mwizi ni ngapi?” (how many days does it take to catch a thief?), the prompt reply will be “arobaini”. Forty days.
Of Bicycles and Leadership What’s the missing ingredient in International Development? This has long been debated as aid has continued to fail to work. I’ve been thinking about “leadership” as the missing ingredient in development efforts. You can pour all the money in the world into a leaderless pit of bureaucracy and never fill it …
It’s unusually hot and rainy for January. The maize is turning golden and farmers have begun to harvest. With the granary construction just about completed, the Nuru team is getting mobilized for a busy month of buying maize and receiving loan repayment, followed by the issue of next season’s inputs. Payment for maize will be …
In many of the schools we work with, preschool teachers are viewed as little more than baby sitters for the youngest children attending school. The government does not hire certified teachers for preschool and kindergarten, so most ECD (early childhood development) teachers are individuals who never went to secondary school, much less teacher college. Because …
Rats are spiteful, evil geniuses. They had a field day while we were gone for the holidays, eating the soap and carpeting my room with poop. They turned my laundry into a nest of half-eaten bugs, poop, and shredded underwear. I find it funny that I can’t stand rats and they did this to my …
I just arrived back this week. Nothing has really happened yet, so I’ll just write about what did: a 49 hours and 52 minutes of planes, trains and automobiles, except without the trains. Which is the shortest amount of time it’s yet taken to get from my door in California to my door in Kenya. …
We arrived back in the project last Wednesday, less than a week into the New Year. Although the foundation team has been gone for more than three weeks, life here in Kuria and the projects here on the ground have continued to steadily push ahead during the holiday season: our Nuru headquarters has been moved …
A belated Christmas message from Foundation Team III (David Carreon, Vivian Lu and Chelsea Barabas) as they head home for a well-deserved break. They’ve already returned to the project and are hard at work in Kuria.
An update on the infrastructure project at St. Joseph’s School from Chelsea Barabas, Nuru’s Education Program Manager.
Whew, this wild three-week evaluation is nearing its end. Our evaluators, the interviewers they hired, the Nuru staff here on the ground, and Stephanie, the manager of the Eval, have worked amazingly hard to do this job. I can’t believe what they have been able to accomplish in just a few short weeks. We have …
Whoa, we are here!! Crazy. Stephanie, myself, and our two evaluators, Sarah and Crystal, strolled into the Nuru house a one week ago yesterday. Our schedule has been absolutely full since then. Stephanie organized and is in charge of the evaluation, Sarah and Crystal are doing all the data gathering. I’m supervising. You know how …
Yesterday was one of the best days I’ve had in a while. I slot a few days every week to go around and visit the farmers and check up on them to see if they are practicing the farming techniques that we have taught them and just to say hi and see how their families …