Welcome all volunteers.
INTRODUCTION
Kenya is facing unprecedented development challenges, but even bigger opportunities. It is a country with a wonderfully rich culture and history, and Kenya share a strong sense of natural identity it is blessed with a sounding natural resources and beauty.Experts have described Kenya as a country with great potental but a disappointing under achiever.Environmental Health Concern Programme is one of the 8 programmes of THIN organization.
Poverty, food insecurity, HIV/AIDS, gender inequality and environmental degradation all confront the country. In the last three decades the number of food insecure people in Kenya has more doubled,
• Over the same period. GDP per capita growth averaged negative 1%
• Malnutrition in Kenya’s children rose by 70% of the period 1970 -2001
• Per capita income of about $ 312 per year was lower in 2002 than $350 in 1975
• Rural women produce up to 80% of the food but access only 10% of the credit, receive less than 5% of the extension service and own only a fraction of the land.
About 1 tone of soil nutrients are lost annually from Kenya’s soil because of cultivating the same piece of land year in - year out.
Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations has stalled in Kenya. 75% of the of the poor live in rural areas, sustaining their existence by farming small plots or breeding cattle, sheep, goats, chicken, donkeys or camels for income. Healthcare and agriculture are central to improving the lives of the poor.
THIN is forging closer links between research and control of tropical diseases, by finding and more view efficient ways of building research and development in Kenya-these are all complex and difficult links.
THIN development agenda revolves around Kenya, where our activities are carried out in partnership with rural and in other settlement populations.
We will not be able to face all these challenges alone we will need your participation and support.
STRATEGIC THEMES
THIN is focusing its activities on eight strategic themes, that impact on it’s mission and that impact on the livelihoods of the rural poor in Kenya.
Through supporting their own thinking, creativity and problem solving. The poor in Kenya who form 56% of the population include women heading households, adolescents, school leavers, the elderly poor, pastoralists and small scale farmers, the landless the handicapped and unemployed.
The Board members are professionals in diverse fields. Medicine, biological sciences agriculture, natural resources management, public affairs, education among others. They assist to plan and carry out multidisciplinary education, training, research, improve process, address opportunities and strengthen partnerships.
The executive Director is the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Scientific Officer of the organization. He is the agent of the Board to ensure that the polices and mission of the organization are carried out. He sits on the Board as a full member.
OUR CORE VALUES
Quality in all our operations, commitment, integrity, transparency, accountability, efficiency, flexibility and local ownership.
COLLABORATION, PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTSOURCING
Collaboration is a key working principle for THIN. THIN focuses where it does not in anyway compete or pre –empty a work of the National Research Extensions systems (NARES) which includes national institutes of health, agriculture, universities, NGOs etc and where the products are clearly international goods.
THIN works with a wide range of collaborators, including International Research centers, Advanced research institutes, National research systems (NARES), Policy Makers, NGOs, Extension agents and community based groups (CBOs). The collaborating institutions, bodies, groups and organizations bring about networking through a strategy of learning by doing. Draft model agreements and contract documents are drawn to given the various activities in the different institutes and to deal with intellectual property rights of the indigenous property
