Penn State Berks professor honored with Global Lifetime Achievement Award

WYOMISSING, Pa. — For the last 17 years, Janelle Larson has packed her bags each May after the Penn State Berks spring commencement ceremony and traveled to Kenya. But this is not a vacation; rather she works on a University-wide global outreach program that she began — Penn State’s collaboration with the Children and Youth Empowerment Centre (CYEC). Recently, she was recognized for the impact she has made with the Penn State Global Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to an individual who has demonstrated exceptional achievement towards furthering the global vision of Penn State.

Larson, professor of agricultural economics and division head of engineering, business and computing at Penn State Berks, initiated and has been instrumental in fostering the collaboration with the CYEC in Nyeri, Kenya. The CYEC is part of the Kenyan national program for vulnerable children and was created to address issues of standards of care, program sustainability and program exit. 

Friendship sows seeds of partnership

The collaboration between the CYEC and the Penn State began when Paul Maina, CYEC founder and director, turned to Larson for assistance. Maina and Larson were students together at the University of Oxford, where both studied as Rhodes Scholars. 
 
Maina was seeking the University’s expertise to help address several gaps in the care and rehabilitation of children served by the innovative school he established in 2006, including training the youth in technological and entrepreneurial skills to support themselves when they leave the CYEC. Larson joined the initiative in 2008. 

Interdisciplinary Partnership

The partnership between Penn State and the CYEC is truly interdisciplinary. Faculty and students from a variety of colleges and campuses, including Penn State Berks and the colleges of Agricultural Sciences, Engineering, and Health and Human Development, and the Smeal College of Business, have joined the partnership with the CYEC to address three broad issues: developing a life-skills curriculum and other programs to enhance standards of care; improving agricultural production, value addition, and other business opportunities to support program sustainability; and creating entrepreneurship and skills education and developing an eco-village where the older youth can transition to independent living as a key part of the exit strategy. 

From the classroom to the field

At Penn State Berks, Larson has co-taught the course “Issues in Economic, Community and Agricultural Development in Kenya,” with Sjoerd Duiker, professor of soil management in the College of Agricultural Sciences at University Park, since 2010. Students learn about Kenyan history, culture and socio-economic conditions and theories of community development before traveling to Kenya for three weeks in May. 

Larson explained that the main point of the course is for students to learn how to ethically collaborate with community partners.

“Often in service-learning, people come in and think they have all the answers. In this case, the CYEC sets the curriculum," Larson said. "That makes it more meaningful. It is a real collaboration and a real partnership.” 

She goes on to explain that the CYEC tells Penn State what they need and Penn State students and faculty work with them to meet those needs.

One community, impacting many

Through Larson’s efforts, the University became involved in helping to support the CYEC through a variety of initiatives. Over the last 15 years, more than 100 Penn State students University-wide, including several student groups from Penn State Berks, have studied and worked on community development projects identified by the CYEC. The partnership has yielded real-world outcomes with lasting impact, including initiatives and programming related to food production, youth development and entrepreneurship. Recent projects include co-creation of a recipe for a nutritious porridge to provide healthy meals for the children at the CYEC and generate income and the development of a demonstration site for regenerative agriculture at the CYEC’s polytechnic site. 

Fortifying breakfast 

Through research and meetings with community health workers, Penn State students learned that calcium and vitamin A are the most common deficiencies among young children in the area. Working with a Kenyan nutritionist, they developed a porridge that incorporates moringa, an excellent source of vitamins A and C, iron and protein, along with finger millet, an indigenous grain high in calcium and iron. Maize (corn) is also incorporated to keep the porridge affordable for local families. 

Larson explained, “The team sampled several formulations — all tasty — and the kids at the center love it. Students helped develop a pricing plan, and the center is producing and selling the porridge to local families and serving it to the children to ensure a healthy start to their day.” 

Regenerative agriculture

Much of the soil in Kenya is degraded, according to Larson, due to intensive use and the planting of maize year after year. Penn State is working with the CYEC, she said, to develop a demonstration site for regenerative agriculture to teach students and demonstrate to local farmers the value of soil health, enhanced through minimal tillage, soil cover and crop rotation or integration.

This year, the students worked on several agricultural projects, including working with a CYEC staff member to produce biochar and incorporated it with compost at the polytechnic site. Biochar serves to retain water and nutrients in the soil, improving soil health over time. They also helped establish a compost site, using food waste and manure, and the students planted moringa seeds to support the porridge production. The agriculture team also identified two leguminous trees, "Gliricidia" and "Calliandra," that can be planted in the shamba (or field) to fix nitrogen and provide ground cover.

Entrepreneurship leads to independence

Another key initiative was designing and building a Zawadi eco-village with the goal of providing a launch pad for youth as they leave the CYEC. “Zawadi” is Swahili for “gift," a name chosen to acknowledge that each child has a gift to offer the world. The Zawadi village includes agricultural production and other entrepreneurial activities to provide income and employment for the youth. It currently produces vegetables for consumption at the CYEC as well as high-value crops for sale. 
 
“The CYEC is more than just a children’s home; it is a convergence point for people of different backgrounds to discuss, research, experiment and consolidate knowledge concerning the empowerment and development of young people,” explained Larson. “The staff at the CYEC are intentional about focusing on developing the whole person and finding sustainable solutions to some of society’s most intractable problems. They provide a rewarding setting for Penn State faculty, staff and students to integrate teaching, research and outreach.” 

In order to fund CYEC initiatives, as well as other programs and operating expenses, Larson established a non-profit corporation, Zawadi Fund International (ZFI), a tax-exempt, 501(c)3 organization, which raises about $150k annually.

In 2020, the collaboration with the CYEC was recognized by the Penn State Office of Global Programs with its Outstanding Program Award for the positive impact it has made on vulnerable youth in Kenya and for the unique educational opportunity it offers Penn State students. 

Shaping the future

The partnership and course have helped to shape the future of Larson’s students, she said. Some have gone on to study international development, global health and sociology in graduate school, while others have pursued careers in economic development and education. Still others have joined such high profile organizations as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Peace Corps. 

“Dr. Larson has been instrumental in shaping my career trajectory," said Penn State alumna Caroline Gimmallaro. "Her course was the first time I had the opportunity to apply the academic concepts of international development to the real world. Dr. Larson not only teaches students how to bridge the gap between theory and application but does so with deep empathy and compassion that facilitates trust and partnership even across very different cultural contexts. The lessons, mentorship and opportunities I received from Dr. Larson were foundational in my subsequent academic study at the Harvard Kennedy School and my career managing international development programs for small nongovernmental organizations and the United States Agency for International Development in Africa and the Middle East.” 

Blair Weikel, also a Penn State alumna, commented on the impact of the course and experience.

“My education in global work and research was limited to what I was taught in a didactic lecture sitting in a classroom on a different continent than those who I was learning about — that is, until I met Dr. Larson. She presented the reality of what global work looks like in academia and what it means to not only study global settings, but to engage with and support communities around the world. Her approach to global work continues to influence how I approach my education and career. Here I am, so many years later, working to complete a Ph.D. in epidemiology with a focus on infectious diseases affecting agricultural communities in rural Central America. I would not be working in tandem to improve lives for these communities without having learned — and continuing to learn — from Dr. Larson.”

Larson said about the program, “By giving undergraduate students the opportunity to learn alongside their peers in Kenya, I am developing the next generation of ethical and engaged development scholars and practitioners.”

Exploring women’s roles in agriculture in Honduras

In addition to her work with the CYEC, Larson has led efforts to understand and expand the role of women in international agricultural development, with a focus on smallholder farm families. 

"Women play a key role in agricultural production globally but often face constraints in access to key resources including land, credit and technical assistance," she explained. "Research and intervention projects that do not factor in the challenges faced by women and other marginalized groups may not have the desired outcomes and may even exacerbate existing inequalities.”

From 2014 through 2019, Larson was the principal investigator on a $1.4 million grant from the USAID-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture at University of California, Davis. The project explored the potential for horticultural production to improve nutrition and empowerment among indigenous women and their families in the impoverished western highlands of Honduras. 

The group conducted surveys which revealed associations between aspects of women’s empowerment and food security and dietary diversity. They found that adults who live in households where women have access to credit or control over income tend to have more diverse diets and are less likely to experience moderate-to-severe food insecurity. 

“Building on these findings and in collaboration with a local indigenous women’s group, we developed and offered gender-transformative farmer field schools that combined training on bio-intensive gardens with training on gender dynamics within the household," Larson said. "In addition to learning about production, participants — both men and women — discussed intrahousehold labor allocation and decision making to increase women’s empowerment.” 

Later, Larson served as the gender specialist for the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture at University of California Davis, and Penn State's Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops.

In addition, Larson has been invited to co-lead trainings for researchers in the CGIAR system, at Oxfam America, Zamorano University in Honduras, the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute in Ghana, Bioversity International and Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Costa Rica. She was also invited to present to the U.S. Senate Hunger Caucus and the USAID Bureau for Food Security. 

A Lifetime of research, teaching and service

Larson has been working in global initiatives for more than 35 years. A visit to Honduras as an undergraduate student at Kansas State University solidified her interest in international agriculture, she said. She went on to study at the University of Oxford, and completed her dissertation research in Honduras. 

She also volunteered with a community organization in South Africa while in graduate school. Her primary research interests include rural economic development, gender and household dynamics and land tenure issues, both internationally and domestically. She has researched land titling and land markets in Latin America, and gender in agriculture in Honduras and Ghana and has looked at the effects of development on agriculture in urbanizing areas domestically.  

About the Penn State Global awards

The purpose of the Penn State Global awards program, "Advancing a Global Penn State," is to recognize the outstanding contributions of individuals and academic units across the University, who have demonstrated success toward contributing to Penn State’s global mission. Penn State Global announced the 2024-25 award recipients in April.