Vets Without Borders is recruiting for our 2023 Young Volunteer Program! We're looking for two (2) Dairy Veterinary Advisor volunteers at Wakulima Dairy Limited, located in Nyeri County in the central highlands of Kenya.
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Job Title: Dairy Veterinary Advisor
Country: Kenya
Location: Nyeri County, in the central highlands of Kenya
Partner Organization: Wakulima Dairy Limited
Duration: 12 weeks
Start Date: May 2023
Pre-departure Training: VWB/VSF will provide training orientation.
Eligibility: Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents of Canada only
Language: English (essential)
Academic Requirements: Enrolled in veterinary college or certified as a veterinary technician
Fundraising: VWB/VSF encourages each volunteer to raise funds towards the organization’s operations.
Volunteer Terms & Conditions
VWB/VSF covers most of the costs of being an overseas volunteer, including:
- Return airfare to placement country
- Visa/permit costs
- The cost of required vaccinations, anti-malarial medication, and overseas emergency travel health insurance
- A monthly living allowance (MLA) that will be paid into the volunteer’s bank account in Canada. The MLA is designed to be sufficient to cover simple housing, basic food requirements, and other typical monthly living expenses.
Our Commitment
Veterinarians Without Borders/Vétérinaires sans Frontière is an equal opportunity employer and values the diversity of our team.
We are committed to inclusive and equitable employment practices and strive to create a workplace that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion. VWB/VSF Canada welcomes applications from all qualified candidates, including members of racialized groups, Indigenous peoples, women, persons with disabilities, and persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity.
Please let us know if you require an accommodation and we will work with you to ensure an equitable hiring process. Thank you for your interest in VWB/VSF Canada.
Overall Goal
The primary purpose of the Dairy Veterinary Advisor role is to help improve nutrition, disease management, and cow comfort of dairy cattle through training community members and One Health champions.
Objectives
- To provide training for farmers, staff, and extension officers
- To help establish champion farmers and demo farms that will help with training of farmers
- To collect baseline information on cow health and nutrition
- To train farmers on disease control by visiting farms and holding in-person training sessions for interested farmers
- To help train farmers on disease identification and control
The role will involve working directly with community members and Wakulima Dairy Limited staff, together with the local country coordinator and liaising with VWB/VSF staff. All Young Volunteer Program participants are supported by a Canadian technical supervisor as well as a staff supervisor at the host organization.
All volunteers are expected to promote gender equality, environmental sustainability, and good governance within their placement responsibilities.
Skills
Essential
- Experience in dairy cattle industry and dairy production
- Ability to support community trainings related to best practices for managing dairy cattle
- Effective cross-cultural communication skills
- Commitment to the principles of volunteer cooperation and familiarity with participatory approaches to development, including the promotion of gender equality, good governance, and environmental sustainability
Desirable
- Previous international work/volunteer experience in Kenya or other developing country is considered an asset
About the Project: VETS
Volunteers Engaged in Gender Responsive Technical Solutions (VETS), funded through the Volunteer Cooperation Program at Global Affairs Canada, will engage 190 volunteers to work with local partner organizations in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
Volunteers will help create integrated animal health systems to increase the livelihoods and household nutrition of small-scale farmers. The VETS program utilizes the skills of volunteers to build local partner capacity to support community members, primarily women, to reduce poverty. Through improved production of livestock and crops, volunteers help improve family income and nutrition.
The VETS program is built around the One Health concept, which recognizes that the health of people, animals, and the natural environment are interconnected. This project promotes the production of more and better food and increased incomes from livestock, all the while promoting land rehabilitation and conservation for sustainable development.
About Veterinarians Without Borders
In the global south, more than 90 percent of food animals are raised by subsistence farmers. However, small-scale livestock producers, the majority of whom are women, have very limited access to quality and affordable animal health services.
Aside from the risks associated with the loss of valuable livestock that provides important protein and/or income for low-income households, zoonotic diseases that can be passed from animals to humans offer a very real threat to human health on a wider scale.
Veterinarians Without Borders/Vétérinaires sans frontières (VWB/VSF) works for and with communities in need to foster the health of animals, people, and the environments that sustain us. VWB/VSF works nationally and internationally to train animal health workers, increase food security, and improve animal and public health.
VWB/VSF provides overseas volunteer placements for veterinarians and other animal and public health professionals.
