NANEY is the reflection of a twenty-plus-year-long relationship with Niger.
It is also the reflection of a twenty-plus-year-long relationship with people.

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NANEY’s founder, Jocelyn Farrington, drew from more than 20 years of experience in international development to create an NGO that was based on best practice and sustainable results. To do so, she returned to her beginnings in Niger as a Peace Corps Volunteer. As a volunteer, she learned that her relationship with the community and key individuals – and their relationship with each other - was the most important element of success. And fundamental to those relationships was trust, established and proven over the long term. As a result, investments that she and other volunteers made in her community have been sustained and self-managed for more than 20 years.

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During repeated visits to her village, not only did she notice that the projects she started as a volunteer continued, but that the community’s trust and openness with her increased. As a result, the people she worked with began proposing their own solutions while taking ownership for the different projects. Throughout her career with leading international development organizations, Jocelyn had never experienced a similar shift to community level ownership, engagement, and self-management. Jocelyn’s conclusion was that the experience in her community demonstrated the importance of mutual trust and long-term solutions based on core investments established through capital and capacity.

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NANEY is the reflection of a twenty-plus-year-long relationship with Niger. But it is also the reflection of a twenty-plus-year-long relationship with people. NANEY’s board members are people whom Jocelyn has known and worked with. Many of them are also former volunteers, or employees of Peace Corps. NANEY works closely with local officials and traditional leaders, many of whom have known Jocelyn for two decades, and whole heartedly support NANEY’s mission and approach. Jocelyn and her board also hope that NANEY provides an opportunity for other returned Niger Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) to reconnect with the communities where they carried out their volunteer service in a lasting and meaningful way.