Capacity building efforts bring many successes to community

The desire to develop her community and country saw Ms Salome Nyanga applying her newly developed skills on community development back in Kenya after her studies on an Australian Government scholarship.

She completed a Master’s degree in Community Planning and Development in 2010, at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

“Studying Community Planning and Development, interacting with the international community and living in a developed country for two years, made me realise that we too could build a better Kenya if each one of us strives towards development.

Being in Australia was an eye opener,” says Ms Nyanga. As a Principal Livestock Development Officer at the Ministry of Livestock Development, she organised and trained various community groups on strategic planning.

She helps the groups articulate common goals and shares the means to achieve these goals. In doing so, Salome has not only helped these community groups to find meaning and direction but, more importantly, agree on ways to channel their new-found direction into actionable plans for results.

Ms Nyanga’s commitment to her community is almost unparalleled. She chose, on completion of her postgraduate studies, to return to her native Chuka, a small town 172 kilometres north-west of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

“I chose to remain at my former station and contribute towards the development of my community,” she says.

Ms Nyanga has successfully supported a district agriculture forum, the production and marketing of dairy goats and their milk, and a milk marketing group.

She has also helped several individual farmers set up successful livestock enterprises by helping them plan strategically and linking them to suppliers and markets.

Salome supported the Meru Goat Breeders Association farmers to mobilise for collective milk marketing, and at the Meru South District the group is currently selling over 300 litres of goat milk per week.

She is also involved with a milk value addition and marketing project, which is supported by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI).