The future of innovation is relational

Leadership Lessons from Bungoma: Innovation Starts with Listening—and Should Be Mirrored Globally In Bungoma County, Kenya, local farmers recently took part in a practical training on how to set planting beds for drip irrigation. The result? A 50% boost in water efficiency. This simple, low-tech intervention is more than just smart farming—it’s a powerful reminder…

Change starts with understanding the root causes and by building relationships of trust with vulnerable communities – key learnings during our 2nd leadership insights week

Regularly, we invite our colleagues from Boehringer Ingelheim to one week Making More Health insights weeks in Kenya. Why? Simply to make them experience what you can never realize and understand while sitting in your offices or reading articles and presentation slides. Experiencing and interacting with vulnerable communities is key! As human beings we tend…

From cooking lessons to mental health – working with youth in slum areas

In the challenging environment of slum areas, where access to nutritious food is often limited, discussing food and nutrition becomes vital for the holistic development of children and teens. Like here in Mukuru Slums in Nairobi: “More than 1000 families living in Mukuru Slums have been impacted since we started the initiative ca. 18 months…

Water is life – our water project in Tongaren, Bungoma county, Kenya

Last year (2022) , one of our Making More Health (MMH) fellows, Farmer Tantoh from Cameroon, trained our farmers in Webuye and Tongaren online on water harvesting, storage and purification. Some weeks later he visited Tongaren in Bungoma county and run an interview with a farmer and local authority about dam project which was set…

Urban farming tours to spread the knowledge in the slums

In the slums in Nairobi nutrient food has always been an issue. But in the past weeks the situation has worsened a lot. The more the activities on urban farming – which has been initiated two years ago by Shakur, leader of VICCO, – become more important and attract the attention of many people living…

A water tower that matters

“I cannot even remember that anyone has come and helped us with such kind of infrastructures here”, said one of the farmers when the big water tower elements arrived at the dam, a large source of natural water in the middle of Bungoma county. “This water tower will help a lot our families to get…

Holistic approaches to empower our farmer communities in Western Kenya

What is happening in our project areas in Bungoma County, Kenya in all the farmer projects? More than 12000 farmers and their families are involved, organized in 12 cooperatives. It’s not just about sharing good farmer practices and animal health training sessions, but also about a better hygiene, a better water quality and environment- friendly…

Our MMH house in Webuye – first constructions are done !

All started last November when we rented a small house to run the first training sessions on health and income generation. In the Covid crises it was A central place to share information on hygiene and to produce soap more than 130 families and people with albinism joined. And the number of interested people to…

What do you think of when you hear about slums?

When you think about slums do you think about poverty, waste, and poor education? When I was in slums in India and Kenya the first time I realized that it is much more than what I thought. Yes, there are a lot of poor people, a big issue with waste and hygiene and many other…