VWB is recruiting Animal Health Advisors for the Emerging Leaders Program to volunteer with our partner, Meru Dairy, in Kenya.
Download Volunteer Placement Description PDFVolunteer Placement Details
Position Title: Animal Health Advisor (Emerging Leaders Program)
Country: Kenya
Location: Meru
Partner Organization: Meru Dairy
Duration: 3 months (May-August, 2025)
Start Date: Early May, 2025
Pre-departure Training: VWB/VSF will provide training orientation.
Eligibility: Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents of Canada only
Language: English (essential)
Academic Requirements: Currently enrolled in Veterinary School or recent graduate, within the last 5 years
Fundraising: VWB/VSF encourages each volunteer to raise funds towards the organization’s operations.
Volunteer Support Package
VWB offers you an incredible experience to take part in an international volunteer experience where you will expand your personal and professional skills while contributing to global development. VWB commits to supporting you throughout your volunteer journey and will cover the majority of the costs involved in being an overseas volunteer, including:
- Return airfare to placement country
- Pre-departure training
- In-country orientation upon arrival in country of placement
- Return airfare to placement country
- Visa/permit costs
- The cost of required for vaccinations and anti-malarial medication
- 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.
- Debrief after the placement
Placement Goals and Responsibilities
As an Animal Health Volunteer Advisor based in Kenya, you will support Meru Dairy Cooperative Union to improve the social economic well-being of the farmers especially women and girls both in one health approach
As part of your role, you will:
- Build capacity of farmers particularly on improving milk quality to reduce rejections, managing and prevention of mastitis and proper calf rearing practices.
- Promote gender equality by building capacity of COHCs (Community One Health Champions) as community lead farmers
- Ensure an environmental and sustainability climate action lens is applied throughout the placement by training staff to integrate climate smart agricultural practices in dairy farming.
- Promote good governance and human rights practices by capacity building partners by linking animal health to human rights
Required Experience and Skills
- Currently enrolled in Veterinary School or recent graduate from DVM program, within the last 5 years
- Bachelors degree and background in animal health, animal nutrition, veterinary sciences, etc.
- Strong experience managing dairy herds and dairy cow health
- In-depth understanding of the technical, institutional, and policy constraints affecting major livestock feeding systems in developing countries
- Knowledge of and experience in the application of improved animal management.
- Promotes a knowledge-sharing and learning culture in the office
Working Conditions
- Handling large animals
- Should be comfortable being driven on gravel/murram roads.
- Lifting and carrying light weight items related to animal health practice
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.
Safeguarding Policy
Veterinarians Without Borders works for, and with, communities in need to foster the health of animals, people and the environments that sustain us. In order to create equitable, sustainable development around the globe, the work of our staff, volunteers, and partners must align with our organizational values. Through our programs, VWB promotes respect, honesty, and professional excellence and we have a zero tolerance policy for any harassment, coercion, sexual exploitation or abuse of any kind. Successful volunteer applicants will be required to follow our Volunteer Code of Conduct and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). Volunteers will also be required to submit a criminal record check.
VWB is a signatory to the Cooperation Canada Leaders’ Pledge on Preventing and Addressing Sexual Misconduct. The pledge represents the shared commitment as Canada’s global development and humanitarian leaders to ensure the full implementation of practices and policies that will protect and respond to our own staff, volunteers and the communities we serve. We are committed to creating safe and respectful workplaces and programs that promote gender equality and are free from gender-based violence, including by addressing and responding to all abuse of power, holding people to account, and protecting the vulnerable. Read the full pledge.
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.
