Nicholas Syano

Executive Director to DNRC 
Master Degree in Natural Resources
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point;
First International Masters Student of the Year

Nicholas Mutuku Syano was born, grew up, and still continues to live in Miauni, Africa, in the Makueni district of Kenya near the town of Mbumbuni. Nicholas has witnessed the natural wooodlands of his community be decimated over the years for charcoal which in turn sustains their livelihood:

“I have even participated in the charcoal burning to make ends meet in my very poor family. At home, I see everyday the negative microclimate changes as the natural woodlands disappear to feed unsustainable and uncontrolled charcoal burning. My own mother and sisters face great hardship because of the extreme firewood shortage and are forced to pay great prices or travel long distances to obtain it. This is destroying our habitat and our community. The near by streams have dried up and the frogs I used to listen to when I was young have disappeared as a result of the desertification caused by unsustainable deforestation and global warming.”  

Nicholas grew up in extreme poverty and was raised by a mother with eight siblings. Despite hardships, he worked hard in primary school to win a scholarship from “Save the Children Fund”, which paid for his secondary school education. He continued on for University training in Kenya. After that he worked at the Kenya Institution of Organic Farming, training poor small scale farmers how to protect the environment through organic farming, creating much needed food security for farmers' families and their community.

In May 2008 Nicholas received a degree in Natural Resources Management from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He focused on small gardening systems for impoverished communities world wide. He was the first international student to receive a Masters Student of the Year award from the College of Natural Resources at UW Stevens Point. He worked on a USAID project, training HIV/AIDs patients how to set up small scale organic farms to supplement their compromised diet, by growing local nutritious vegetables to support a healthy immune system.

Nicholas currently works full-time as the Project Manager of a sustainability-focused community for children who lost their parents to HIV/AIDS in Nyumbani village-Kitui, which is close enough to his home that he is able to maintain and manage the DNRC's operations in his spare time.