Nim Njuguna set up Mbaruk Ecology Centre (MEC) in the late 1990s to support food security and community empowerment in Mbaruk. Working with community members and a small team, MEC partnered with Egerton University to conduct a Participatory Rural Appraisal, to ensure that MEC’s work plan was informed by the community’s priorities. MEC facilitated links with organisations and institutions to improve food security by demonstrating solar cooking methods, rain harvesting and composting, introducing amaranth (a high yield and nutritious crop), and initiating a bee-keeping cooperative of 19 local people. They also facilitated a visit by 5 young deaf people from Nairobi Deaf School to work with members of the community dispelling myths of deafness as a mental deficiency. Six graduates on a USA overseas volunteer scheme spent six weeks based at the Centre working within the community.

In the UK, Nim initiated a Commonwealth Youth Exchange in 2005 for sixteen young British people from Brixton to visit Kenya, which included a work camp in Mbaruk. They spent time with their Kenyan counterparts, comparing personal stories and life experiences, and working together on projects, including building a community house, painting school rooms and planting trees. These collaborations were facilitated by MEC being recognised by the Provincial Education Office as fit to set up School Eco-clubs. Nim registered NECT with the Charity Commission the same year, and Mbaruk Field Studies Centre as its associated partner in Kenya.

NECT facilitated further visits to Mbaruk

  • Irish and Japanese storytellers from Cambridge exchanged stories with members of the local community over three days, including using and making puppets;
  • Four university students (Anglian Ruskin University) stayed in Mbaruk for a month working on projects alongside local young people;
  • A Churchill Fellow included Mbaruk on his fact-finding trip to East and Southern Africa;
  • A collaboration between Cambridge and Nairobi University SIFE groups (Students in Free Enterprise) visited Mbaruk over a five-day period to support twenty-four local young entrepreneurs.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first trip to Kenya (and in fact Africa), mostly due to the hospitality of our friendly hosts – friends from the University of Nairobi. Because of the unique nature of our trip, we had the chance to experience both the life of living in the city as well as that of living in a rural area. More importantly, I could finally see and talk to the various people I have been working with for nearly a year, and actually meet those people whom we will be helping through our project, and not to mention making a lot of friends along the way!

SIFE Cambridge, 2008

NECT offered space for a goat breeding house and funding for its construction and purchasing breeding stock in response to the local young entrepreneurs working with SIFE identifying goat breeding as a potential enterprise to support higher milk yield with increased market access. Key learnings from this project were the need for quality control and assessment of animals for breeding and human resource capacity to sustain the engagement of the community group.

NECT sought to engage Kenya's youth, including those in the diaspora in the UK, with the wealth of Kenya's cultural heritage through a project entitled Kenya’s Story in 100 Objects.

African Diaspora Kids collaborated with Kenya’s 100 Objects for the William Morris Gallery Experience Africa! family day on 30th April 2016. This was a highly successful day with the gallery exceeding its goal of attracting 250 visitors to the event. It was clear from observation and feedback that the Kenya 100 Objects was one of the ‘pull’ factors for the success of this unique event in the borough of Waltham Forest, northeast London.

Grace Owen, Founder and Director, African Diaspora Kids

Nim moved back to Kenya to live in Mbaruk in 2022, continuing to bring NECT’s mission into reality as the deputy chair. This initiates a new phase for NECT to strengthen its capacity in Kenya and realise its charitable objects in new ways.

Kenya’s Story in 100 Objects has also migrated to a new home, Mbaruk Art House (MAH), a community empowerment centre.

NECT is grateful to those who have given their time, and energy and commitment as trustees and members in the UK since its inception, and to those in Mbaruk and Nakuru who have aided its work.