New Nepal Nutrition
To eliminate death by malnutrition in Nepal, I will locally produce and distribute a scientific peanut butter known as a ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF).
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Field of Work
health/sports
If Field of Work is “other” please define in 1-2 words below
Year project started (or projected start date) (yyyy)
2008
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Project URL (or link to any media coverage)
What is the primary problem your venture is trying to address and how are you addressing it (or planning to address it)?
Children represent half of Nepal’s population but all of its future.
From 1996-2006, the blood of 14,000 Nepalese was shed in a gruesome civil conflict. Yet in the 16 weeks it has taken elected officials in post-conflict Nepal to fumble through forming a government, 16,000 children have died from malnutrition outside of the national and international spotlight. That is 1000 children every week, 130 children every day, and 1 child every 10 minutes. At the current rate, the Millennium Development Goal of 50% reduction in child malnutrition by 2015 will not occur until 2040.
The need is urgent. Nepal has the highest percentage of underweight children in the world, and malnutrition is the underlying cause of 70% of the “under-five” deaths.
Malnutrition is an investment, not just a health outcome that will passively ride on the coattail of development. Lack of food is stunting productivity of each surviving gen eration of Nepalese by an average of 11 IQ points, costing the country 3% of its total GDP annually.
A recent study by the UN's World Food Program warned bluntly: "There is a clear risk that rising food prices may undermine the peace process if not taken seriously by all involved."
Name Your Project
New Nepal Nutrition
Describe Your Idea
To eliminate death by malnutrition in Nepal, I will locally produce and distribute a scientific peanut butter known as a ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF).
Innovation
Project Description
To eliminate death by malnutrition in Nepal, I will locally produce and distribute a scientific peanut butter known as a ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF).
Unique and different
In Nepal, extreme geographical isolation and unforgiving terrain demand an innovative distribution model. Like the three other locally produced RUTF programs across the world, this product will be produced and distributed in food deficit regions of Nepal.
Unlike other RUTF programs, this product will also be delivered throughout the country to previously “unreachable” malnutrition hotspots on the voluntary backs of trekkers and tourists. This is a way to truly alter the conception of “responsible tourism.”
Imagine the thousands of trekkers that visit Nepal each year carrying a few packaged units each to the villages along the hundreds of trekking routes. In each village, there will be an assigned drop off point where the product can be stored until it is most needed by the community.
Imagine the evangelical nature of exposing thousands of tourists to this life saving product each year. Imagine the expo nential growth this distribution system could create.
Project plan
Within the next six months, I will:
- Build in-country partnerships in Nepal
- Travel to Haiti to observe two separate but similar nutrition projects run by world class organizations (Meds and Food for Kids and Partners in Health),
- Contribute to an online working group on malnutrition through Nyaya Health, a Yale University supported health organization in Far-Western Nepal
- Intern with International Development Enterprises (a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation two-time awardee) in Nepal to gain knowledge about creating markets for small plot farmers
- Begin research locally in Far-Western Nepal to identify the specific community where the project should be implemented the following year.
Partnerships
This field has not been completed. (166 words or less)
Impact
Impact
The mission of New Nepal Nutrition is to concurrently create health and destroy poverty in rural Nepal. This “creative destruction” of the current failed food system is guided by the following five goals:
1. Eliminate death by malnutrition in Nepal
2. Produce a significant, stable supply of high quality ready-to-use therapeutic food
3. Run a health delivery system that is less than 50% donor funded
4. Become the world’s premier ready-to-use therapeutic food production and distribution model
5. Educate multiple generations in primary healthcare delivery
These goals all have corresponding time-based, specific and measurable objectives.
Effectiveness
This field has not been completed. (25 words or less)
How do you engage and impact the community?
This field has not been completed
How do you measure this impact?
- Prevalence of malnutrition
1. Underweight
2. Stunting (chronic malnutrition)
3. Wasting (acute malnutrition)
- Deaths due to diseases whose susceptibility is increased by malnutrition (diarrheal, acute respiratory infections, measles)
- Income generated by small plots farmers and employees of the organization
- Food security (reliance on outside emergency aid)
Because this product is found at the confluence of public health and investment, once produced, the peanut-butter based therapeutic food will concurrently produce lower rates of malnutrition and higher income for small plot farmers.
Through community-based participatory action research, locals will determine which additional outcomes are important to measure.
Obstacles
This field has not been completed. (83 words or less)
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Financing source
(or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)
This field has not been completed. (166 words or less)
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow and sustain your project?
This field has not been completed. (200 words or less)
Finance details
This field has not been completed. (166 words or less)
Creative funding
This field has not been completed. (83 words or less)
Other non finance needs
This field has not been completed. (83 words or less)
The Story
Motivation
My most terrifying day in Nepal was one when I mistakenly ate a dish which contained crushed nuts in the sauce. As an anaphylactic reaction began to take its course, I felt trapped, a bit helpless, and feared for my life. You could say, that for a fleeting moment of my fortunate life, I felt just the same as the one child in Nepal who dies of malnutrition every 10 minutes feels during the course of his entire life.
Trapped.
Helpless.
Fearing for his life.
In a strange twist of fate, I have discovered that I can deliver life to the children of Nepal with the very product that threatens me with death. By producing and distributing a peanut-butter based therapeutic food locally in rural Nepal, not only will the most primordial and pervasive health problem facing the country be destroyed but thousands of meaningful jobs will also be created.
Awards
This field has not been completed. (83 words or less)
Broader context
This field has not been completed. (166 words or less)
Ongoing
This field has not been completed. (166 words or less)
What is your age?
21
How did you hear about this competition?
Ashoka email
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