The highly collaborative approach taken by the NaviNut project in Benin and Kenya integrated the knowledge of agropastoralist women about caring for young children with the knowledge of local food processors and community healthworkers and the knowledge of African and German researchers in various disciplines. NaviNut engaged in action research in which the local women were co-researchers. They exchanged their practical knowledge through food fairs, cooking demonstrations and peer-to-peer learning sessions. The project sought to identify and build on women’s “positive deviance”: innovation by women who use local resources to feed their children better than do other women with access to the same resources. The mothers documented their innovations in video films they made themselves with researchers’ support, using the “participatory video” technique.
This approach and its outcomes are featured in a 4-page illustrated article in the March 2025 issue of the Appropriate Technology magazine:
From research to action: collaborating with agropastoralist women in dryland Africa, in Appropriate Technology 52(1): 36–39, by Patricia Kiprono, Brigitte Kaufmann, Paul Jimmy Kouété & Ann Waters-Bayer, with photos by Jamal Omar
