Host Organization: Catholic Relief Services
First Year Placement
Nairobi, Kenya and Somalia
Theo supported life-saving nutrition interventions in pastoralist Turkana County, Kenya through Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition and the provision of emergency Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Nutrition Practices. He helped conduct outreach measures delivering ready-to-use therapeutic food in areas prone to drought and cattle-raiding conflict.
He joined community health workers collecting data measuring malnutrition using SMART survey methodology. In doing so, he conducted surveys measuring food insecurity and practiced anthropometric measurement collection. The latter included Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) measurement training.
Theo conducted research at the Kenyan National Archives gathering evidence proving that Kenya’s Mau Mau Uprising was a famine. With a trip planned to the British National Archives, in England, Theo continued to refine his research skills under the guidance of Kenyan archivists and historians. He examined primary sources highlighting malnutrition amidst brutal detention policies, which include handwritten notes from captured Mau Mau detainees detailing starvation crimes.