Nuru International

Nuru International is a United States-based social venture created to help disadvantaged communities in rural areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. The ultimate aim of the program is to help local leaders end extreme poverty in their communities. Nuru is a Kiswahili word that means "light."

History
Nuru International was founded by Jake Harriman, who attended the U.S. Naval Academy and served for over 7 years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Platoon Commander. Harriman's experiences in combat compelled him to believe that extreme poverty was a contributing factor to global terrorism. Harriman left his career in the Marine Corps and enrolled at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. This move was motivated by a desire to start an organization that would fight terrorism by ending extreme poverty. His company, Nuru International, began operations in 2008.

Development model
Nuru International trains and equips local leaders in effective poverty reduction methods developed by other humanitarian organizations around the world. Because of this approach, Nuru has been called a "general contractor of the NGO sector". Nuru, as of 2009, has been piloting a community development model to address four areas of need: hunger, inability to cope with economic shock, preventable disease/death, and lack of access to quality education during childhood. Nuru partners with organizations such as One Acre Fund.

Nuru identifies and mentors local leaders in the principles of servant leadership by mobilizing the community into groups led by these local leaders. This leadership model aims to supply leaders with the necessary expertise to lift their communities out of extreme poverty.

Nuru integrates revenue generation models into all five of its program areas to achieve sustainability and eventually scale to achieve national impact.

Pilot project
Nuru International's first project was in Kuria, Kenya. Located in the southwestern Kenya, Kuria is one of Kenya's poorest districts.

As of 2010, 5,525 farming families have enrolled in Nuru's agriculture loan program, experiencing a 123% increase in their maize yields on average. Nuru's other program areas (healthcare, education, and community economic development) operate in concert with the agriculture program to develop humanitarian aid.