By Krystina Lewis, Ashley Kroyer, and Angelina Gorrill, AVC/UPEI senior vet students

It’s hard to believe we have been here for almost three weeks now. 

The project “More Food, Better Food; Empowering Kenyan Women Farmers” provides us as veterinary students with the opportunity to educate farmers on dairy management to help them increase their milk production; specifically, we get to work with some of the local women’s groups. This experience has provided us with the chance to use and better our teaching skills. We have been thrilled with the positive feedback we have received after each seminar; many farmers have expressed how much they have learned from each seminar and how happy they are to see young, intelligent women passing along their knowledge.  

AVC’s Ashley teaching about disease prevention 

University of Nairobi student Rose teaching about calf and heifer management. 

We have been welcomed by every seminar group with open arms although one group does stand out. Mwende Women’s Group welcomed us with song and dance! 

It has been an honour to meet so many groups of strong, intelligent women. The women were engaged throughout each seminar. They Mwende Women’s Group gifted us beautiful green polo shirts that was similar in colour to their matching dresses!

Dr. John VanLeeuwen and AVC students Angelina, Ashley, and Krystina with some of the Mwende Women’s Group in Tigania after receiving our polo shirts. 

This past week we also met with Destiny Women’s Group. It was very special as they gifted us with our Kimeru names. Since Ashley spent 3 months in Naari in 2018, she already had her Kimeru name; Kendi which means someone who makes others happy. Krystina was given the name Karimi which means an active farmer. Angelina was given the name Mwendwa which means someone who is loved. It was very special for us to receive these names.

On our last day we were able to get a tour of the University of Nairobi Veterinary School from our new Kenyan vet student friends Rose and Festus. To our surprise, we were greeted by Jacob, the Kenyan student from our first week. It was so wonderful to see him again and catch up along our tour. We also bumped into Alube in the hallway and were greeted with a warm hug. It’s clear we have made life-long friends here in Kenya and we wish them all the best for the future.

We would like to thank all the Farmers Helping Farmers team, both Canadian and Kenyan, for this amazing experience. We were able to work with and meet so many wonderful people. 

Tuonane tena – see you again!