The Boscovet Project was started in 2008 by a small group of concerned individuals living in Kisii, Kenya, a fairly large town in western Kenya not too far from Lake Victoria. They wanted to help those poverty stricken families, many of them widows, who lived in a small village nearby named Menyinkwa. The goal was to combine labor and ideas to help those less fortunate while living out their Christian faith. Lilian Marube, a veterinarian technician by training (a mother of 3 children), met with Kennedy Gichaba, a college graduate with a degree in agriculture (married and father of two children), and Evans Gwaro, a small businessman (married and father of two small childrean), to launch this small project. It was granted official NGO status by the Kenyan government in 2011 or 2012. They combined their efforts with Pastor John, the pastor of a small church and school in Menyinkwa and a small landholder/farmer named David. They then went searching for help on the internet and found us at the Christian Veterinary Mission website. In January 2009, Craig Humphries and Dan Haskins volunteered to go on an assessment visit to learn more about these individuals and their project which at the time consisted of around 25 members.

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We soon found that this group was a solid Christian oriented organization with people who were seriously looking for ways to lift them and their families out of the cycle of poverty. We made the observation that there were several simple things - some required money, but others did not - that would improve their lives immensely. We visited homes and vaccinated and dewormed their animals; held training seminars for them and the community on animal health topics, emphasized the value of goats for their relatively small farms; observed the critical need for access to a clean and more convenient water source. and learned a lot about their operations and constraints.

Each year a team has returned in January and occasionally in July. January is a good time as the rains have stopped and the harvest is over. The rains come again in late February or early March and then they get ready to plant the first of two crops of corn and other vegetables of the year in April. Organic methods of soil improvement was another need we recognized. So the next year we organized a field trip to a local teaching site for organic agricultural methods where about a dozen of the farmers learned about techniques for improving their soils at minimal cost and increasing crop yield. In 2011 we provided scholarships for two of the members to return for a week long stay and training. They have since passed along their knowledge to many others in their communities. In fact, Joyce has added several women to the Boscovet group, now known as the Otamba chapter. We have 3 chapters of Boscovet Project - one in each of three villages. All pool their efforts to help and support one another (Update - as of January 2020 we now have 6 chapters and approximately 150 families).

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