85% of people in extreme poverty live in remote rural areas.  Half of all people in extreme poverty are smallholder farmers living in remote rural areas.

Nuru International is on a mission to end extreme poverty in remote rural areas.  Of the world’s 7 billion people, 1.6 billion people live in extreme poverty.  That’s 1 in 5 people on the planet.  Living in extreme poverty means one can only think of meeting today’s basic needs and cannot plan for tomorrow, much less the future.  Even if they manage to survive day-to-day, at some point they will experience a shock: sickness, crop failure, funeral, etc.  Without access to resources (like medicine), savings or consistent sources of income, families continue to fight for daily survival.  remote rural populations are not only difficult to reach, but are hard to service.  The increased risk, high transaction costs and low household resources are the challenges that governments, NGO’s and corporations have to face to reach this population.

Nuru took this information and realized by providing agricultural loans and training to the local farmer more people are impacted at the least cost in the most sustainable way.  Farmers like Susan, who with the loan can now send her children to school. Farmers like Bageni, who before Nuru harvested only three sacks of maize but now sacks eighteen and will pay off his agricultural loan.  Now, when you purchase your Cozzee coffee you help towards reaching our goal to provide five local farmers, like Susan and Bageni, in Ethiopia and Kenya the agricultural loan and training they need to save lives of not only themselves and their family, but an entire community. Take a look at more stories from farmers impacted by Nuru International in the following video.

$100 funds one farmer’s agriculture loan for one season + their share of training and regular visits by a field officer to ensure that his/her crops are growing well.

At harvest time, farmers finish repaying their loans and commercialize their surplus produce with the assistance of Nuru Kenya.

Nuru Kenya’s Agriculture Program provides the whole farmer package – a farm input loan (seed & fertilizer), technical training, extension services and group support structures.

A Nuru farmer proudly shows her harvest in Kenya.

A Field Manager conducts Agriculture Training for Nuru farmers in Ethiopia.

Since 2008, Nuru International’s focus is to end extreme poverty in remote, rural areas.  Resources are limited and the need is both urgent and overwhelming.  To compact this issue they have designed transferrable systems and workflows that can quickly address need, create lasting impact and facilitate their expansion to more countries. The heart of the Nuru Model is to deliver a self-renewing and self-sustaining pipeline of leaders and finances to enable lasting change in extremely poor remote rural communities.  Their projects must operate efficiently and effectively without dependency on long-term international support.  They believe that the most powerful solutions for ending extreme poverty lie within the very same people who live in it every single day.
For more on Nuru International visit www.nuruinternational.org.