Tillie, First Class delivery to a village in Nepal
While we sell Tillie here in the US, we believe strongly that our tools can be helpful in the developing world. We recently had the opportunity to provide two Tillies to the team at Global Nutrition Empowerment to take to Nepal.
Our friend, Marie Long, an Oregon Neurosurgeon, was working at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal. Marie recognized what she characterized as “hidden hunger” where the local villagers, while consuming enough calories to live, were missing the necessary micro-nutrients (nutritionally essential vitamins and minerals) for health. This lack of micro-nutrients was resulting in of crippling birth defects which can be prevented by mothers receiving enough folic acid in their diets.
Access to multi-vitamins can significantly alleviate these problems, and Global Nutrition Empowerment (GNE) delivers prenatal vitamins to 15,000 women a year. GNE also understands that growing food rich in the needed vitamins and minerals can create a more sustainable path to health for the villagers of Nepal.
In February of this year, 10 volunteers travelled to Nepal to deliver prenatal vitamins. An exciting additional project was to catalog and observe existing agricultural practices. Two Tillies hitched a ride to Nepal in volunteer Leslie Melnyk’s suitcase, and created quite a stir in the Himalayan Hills. Leslie will give us some glimpses from her journal over the next couple of weeks. Keep watching for her posts and pictures.