On this episode of Motivating Other Moms, Rosemary talks to Navyn Salem about her non-profit organization, Edesia. Navyn discusses juggling being a mom and an entrepreneur, while passionately trying to end malnutrition in Africa, and other areas around the world.
Tweetables
“The people that I meet are so friendly, that it’s such a missed opportunity if people don’t go and experience Africa.”
“Our job is to make life a little better for those children by delivering micronutrients”
“If we could only reach more, then those kids futures are really secured for life.”
“The girls come back and have this depth of knowledge that they can’t get by sitting in a classroom.”
“Everyone’s kids are different so you have to figure out what’s right for them.”
“I had to get over a lot of my fears and take a leap of faith, to see if I could make it happen, so here we are.”
“This is not just a box coming down a conveyor belt, it’s a complete life transformation.”
About Our Guest
Navyn Salem is the founder and Executive Director of Edesia. Inspired to action in 2007, after attending a Clinton Global Initiative meeting, Navyn first founded a factory in her father’s home country of Tanzania. She now operates a state-of-the art facility in Providence, employing 55 people in a US state with one of the highest unemployment rates. Since the RI factory opened in March 2010, Edesia has reached over 2 million malnourished children in over 40 countries. In 2012, Navyn was named New England Business Woman of the Year by Bryant University; received the Roger E. Joseph Prize from Hebrew Union College for being an outstanding humanitarian; and was given an honorary doctorate in social sciences from Boston College, her Alma Mater. Navyn is a Boston College Trustee, a board member for Crossroads Rhode Island, and a Social Enterprise Rhode Island partner. In 2013, Navyn received an honorary degree in business administration from Bryant University. In 2014, Navyn became one of the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellows.
For more info: http://www.edesiaglobal.org/about-us/our-founders-story/
Transcript
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Rosemary Nickel:
Hi, this is Rosemary Nickel with Motivating Other Moms and here I am with another podcast with a purpose. These podcasts are so exciting and so inspiring, and today I have Navyn Salem of Edesia Global Nutrition Solutions. You came up with a mind blowing solution to the hunger problem across the world and what’s interesting is you go to third world countries, but you produce it in the U.S., and so many people are outsourcing out of the U.S., it’s interesting that you have chosen to do it in the U.S. and we will get to that story, but I would love to know about your background and what you started out as, before you became this global nonprofit.
Navyn Salem:
Thanks for having me, Rosemary. This will be an exciting little time to have a chat with you, and tell others about our story at Edesia. I guess I was in the corporate world, I worked in marketing for an internet company many years ago and found out one day that I was having twins. That put an end to my working career temporarily, since I figured juggling two babies and a job was not something I could manage at the time. I had twins, and then ended up having two more. So, I have four daughters.
Rosemary Nickel:
Wow!
Navyn Salem:
I didn’t have a lot of time back in those days of changing diapers, but what it did allow me was a lot of time to think. My perspective really changed, having those children in my life. My interest became shifted from corporate marketing to mothers and children and what their issues are around the world and what they have to deal with. So, during that time I thought, when I do have a chance to get back into the work field, I would like to focus on something like that, for my second act. My family is original from Tanzania, my dad’s side. With that business background, that interest in Tanzania, and having four daughters, those three areas I was able to combine and look for an opportunity for what we could do, what kind of project we could come up with, to make a difference in the world.
Rosemary Nickel:
How old were your girls when you started this?
Navyn Salem:
My littlest was one, so the next one was two and half, and the twins were six years old. My husband used to joke “You are really going to Africa just to get some sleep,” and maybe that was partly true.
Rosemary Nickel:
So you left the girls and your husband behind?
Navyn Salem:
Yes, yes.
Rosemary Nickel:
Good for you!
Navyn Salem:
I headed out for my first research trip to Tanzania and Rwanda to kind of get a feel for what’s going on on the ground. What projects are people working on? What are their philosophies, their mandates? What are the pressing issues, and more importantly, what are the gaps that exist? Because I didnt want to do something that was already well covered. While I was wandering around Tanzania, I was able to go to a factory there that was producing all kinds of really basic necessities. One of the main products that they were making was mosquito nets, and there were three-thousand women employed at this factory and there was a line of women out the door who were waiting for these jobs.
Rosemary Nickel:
Wow!
Navyn Salem:
That vision, that site, really struck me. Not only is this company providing employment for all these women, they’re providing paychecks that support an entire family behind those women. As icing on the cake, they’re making something that solves a major global health challenge in preventing Malaria and I thought that business model was so brilliant that I wanted to replicate that, but maybe in a way that wasn’t currently being done. That’s what kind of led to the idea of starting factories that could produce a fortified peanut butter that could address severe acute malnutrition.
Rosemary Nickel:
I thought the peanut butter was a great idea because its a protein base that can be filling without having a lot of it, and so you’ve done a nut based—what is it called? RUF’s?
Navyn Salem:
Yes, Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food. We put everything in acronyms, so they call them RUF’s, or Ready-to-Use Foods.
Rosemary Nickel:
What gave you that idea to do a peanut based, or a nut based product?
Navyn Salem:
I don’t take credit for coming up with the original formula. That was a combination of some efforts, mostly by someone who is working at the world health organization and Nutriset, which is a French company, who developed these first formulas back in the late 1980’s. It took many years to be able to get this through trials and to get it actually into general distribution through organizations like UNICEF and World Food Program. I proposed partnering with them about eight years ago, to start up a factory, first in Tanzania. Because one of the main reasons for having it be peanut based, is peanuts exist in these malnutrition hotspots. So, if we can create these products locally, then we are continuing to provide job creation, not only in factory positions, but also the agricultural jobs needed to support the business and creating the solution in-country for that country, or for bordering countries in that region. I first started the factory in Tanzania in partnership with this french company, Nutriset, and that’s kind of how we got started.
Rosemary Nickel:
How do you start a factory in another country, while you’re raising your family in the U.S.?
Navyn Salem:
I think its very obvious, Rosemary. You look for somebody who is another woman, who also has four children, who can help you set this up. I found a woman entrepreneur in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that had a factory that was producing fortified blended foods, so we decided to work together and add on to her factory. We built an addition and got the equipment in there and added the staff to be able to make Plumpy’Nut, our main product, available for purchase through the Tanzanian government and also surrounding countries. In that region, Tanzania is an oasis of peace and stability, but around them are countries that seem to be in constant state of civil unrest or draught or many other situations, refugee situations. So, they were then able to export to about nine countries in that region. It really had an impact in a lot of East Africa.
Rosemary Nickel:
There’s a lot of things I want to say here. One is, a lot of people, at least in America, don’t understand the size of Africa, and that there’s lots of countries within Africa, and that there’s a lot of fear in the U.S. that the news has put in there, being fearful of going to various places within Africa. How can you explain that for people to get a visual and understand how it really is?
Navyn Salem:
That’s a great question, actually people keep asking me, “I’m going to South Africa but I’m scared of Ebola.” I’m like, “Have you looked at a map lately?” There’s 20 countries or more that are in between there and where the ebola epicenter and I always feel very safe. The people that I meet are so friendly, so open and welcoming, that it’s such a missed opportunity if people don’t go and experience Africa. It has so many gems, all over the continent and frankly, the only place I have been mugged was Spain. So, if you think it’s safer to go to Europe than Tanzania, I strongly disagree. I mean, obviously you’re sensible about where you are, and every country is very different. Some people sometimes just refer to it as Africa, like its a country, but it’s full of so many different countries with so many different cultures and different situations going on. You have to use your senses to make wise decisions, because not all of the countries are safe. I did get a lot of slack for taking my 10-year-old to Sierra Leone in July, working on a little side project that we have going on, and it was at the very start of Ebola, so my family was worried. I said, “Well, I know what the situation is and I’m staying away from clinics, and I’m staying away from places where I would potentially put myself or my daughter at risk and I would never put her at risk intentionally.” It went very well. I felt very safe but this was many months ago. I’m not suggesting that people vacation in Sierra Leone currently, but situations are always changing and it’s such a beautiful, beautiful place, full of amazing people that everyone should go if they can figure a way to get there.
Rosemary Nickel:
I’ve always desired and I think there’s a lot pf people that desire it now from the U.S. to take their kids to different countries to experience different ways of lives and open their eyes to a different way of living and what the world has to offer and what the world needs. We’re very spoiled in the U.S. Once you leave that and come back you realize how obnoxious we actually are, it’s quite shocking.
Navyn Salem:
I feel really lucky to be able, as part of my work, to take my kids along with me. Some of them have been to Haiti, and as I mentioned in West Africa. We have plans for a lot more visits to places off the beaten path, because I think that’s where you have the opportunity to learn the most and to teach your children by seeing. The stories that they bring back, and what the unfortunate thing that they’ve learned when they go to these countries is that they know how to say, “I’m hungry,” in many different languages or many different signs and for them to be faced with a child who comes up to them and says, “I’m hungry,” and to not know what to do about that is a very scary issue to be confronted with as a child. Even in the past, I’ve had mothers come up to me and offer me their babies, “Will you please take my child?” My twins looked at me and said, “Did she really just offer you her child?” I said yes, and this happens all the time. I said the way I have processed this is I cant take any babies back with me because then I cant do what I do. I wouldn’t have the time to try and find long term solutions to some of the challenges that these mothers have. Our job is really to try and make life a little bit better for those children by delivering micronutrients that help develop the brain and the body, so that they can not only survive but go to school. If we don’t intervene with those incredibly important micronutrients than the effect is irreversible. We cannot get that back after a certain age so it’s very important for us to not miss this window of opportunity. One of the hardest things I see when I travel in the field is the kids that we’ve missed. Maybe they’re sitting there in the classroom and you can tell that they aren’t processing what the teacher is teaching them, and for me that’s really hard to see, because now we have lost potential, and its just not necessary. The interventions cost pennies to intervene on a daily basis, if we could only reach more, than those kids futures are really secured for life.
Rosemary Nickel:
How do you deal with traveling with your kids, and their schooling and your lifestyle.
Navyn Salem:
To date we have done very small trips and I just pull them out for a few days here and there. We do have a longer trip planned where I am actually going to homeschool the girls for a few months, in order to be able to take them to see a little bit more, just because I think teaching by seeing, by doing by smelling, looking, looking out the window, is just such an incredible way to teach children. I am going to take a couple month break from Edesia, I’ll be back, just to pursue this idea of teaching from the road, because the girls come back and have this depth of knowledge that they can’t get by sitting in a classroom. So it’s just really important for me. I don’t care what they do with their lives, I just want them to see what’s going on in the world. My children have probably seen what most adults have never come in contact with, and that just gives them a different level of understanding the human spirit and what’s truly going on in so many different places around the world.
Rosemary Nickel:
Last year, I had the opportunity to go down to Haiti and I wanted to take my son with me, he was ten at the time, and they felt that that was still too young to take your kids down to Haiti, and I was really disappointed.
Navyn Salem:
Yeah but I think you have to be really careful what they’re seeing. If it was post-earthquake, I certainly wouldn’t recommend bringing children. One of my first visits for research purposes, that I was talking about before, I was with a few other interested parties, and they had brought their children who were 16 and 18 and we were in Rwanda. What we were seeing was very, very tough, its very hot, the smells in the hospital are different than any of us are used to, the diseases that you can see with your own eyes are difficult to process, the history of Rwanda and genocide is difficult to understand, and for those 16 and 18 year olds, it was too much for them, they couldn’t sleep, they felt sick. It was a very bad situation. So, when I bring my 10 year old, it was because we were going to some schools, and that’s a very safe introduction to this kind of work. I would never start off visiting a clinic because that’s just too young of an age, or if it’s post-earthquake and you’re seeing real devastation, I wouldn’t bring my kids to that either. I am very selective about what I bring them to and what I know they’re able to handle because I’m not trying to scar them for life. I’m just trying to help them start an understanding and we kind of ease our way into that and everyone’s kids are different so you have to figure out what’s right for them.
Rosemary Nickel:
I think that’s great insight. Have you ever considered doing a travel plan with families that want to immerse their kids in different communities across the world to learn?
Navyn Salem:
Yeah we get a lot of requests for that. I know my own friends are looking, “How do I find these opportunities to teach my kids how lucky they are for having a roof over their head?” Especially during the holidays when they come up with a list, three pages long, of things they think they need and all of us mothers say the same thing, “There’s starving children all over the world,” or even in the United States, and they’re just empty words most of the time. I know there are mothers who are like, “How can I get an experience like that?” So, this is something I think we’re going to look into in the future. A program that we can go to regularly, so that I’m familiar with it and I know what you and your family are getting into. That’s possibly a great idea of something that we could put together for other families to be able to participate in, because the great thing is, once you go, and you have a positive experience, then you’re kind of hooked. We’ve each been face-to-face with someone who needs a little bit of help to get through a rough time, but then you can impact the rest of their life. If you see them face-to-face there’s no way you can turn your back on them.
Rosemary Nickel:
Right, and then you have a new following of people who are following Edesia. When you started that factory in Tanzania, you had to invest that money to help build out that part of the factory, how did you guys get the funding for that? How did you make that happen?
Navyn Salem:
Well we were set up as a nonprofit then, so we took donations in, but we had a three-way partnership, the French company, Nutriset, and also Power Foods, which is the woman I mentioned before in Tanzania, the three of us, put up equal parts of money to get started.
Rosemary Nickel:
What kind of investment is that compared to the U.S., making something like that happen? Is it 50%, more or less?
Navyn Salem:
Well, the equipment costs are the same no matter where you are, the labor costs are less. It’s the same as when we look at the pricing for our factories that are in vastly different areas. For example, in Providence, where our U.S. factory is, our labor expense is very high, relative to somewhere in Africa, where the salaries are significantly less, but what they have to deal with is constant interruptions in power and electricity, or delays getting raw materials to the factory, either the port is full, or days of delay in traffic. We don’t have to deal with that in the U.S. A lot of those inconveniences of a lack of infrastructure that they have to deal with in Tanzania, we don’t have to deal with here, so those two expenses kind of offset each other. We end up with a very similar price, or perhaps even cheaper here in the U.S. When you think of manufacturing, everyone thought you had to go to China or somewhere in Asia, and I thought “I want to have control over what were making.” The quality of these products is so important, that I felt like putting that thousands of miles away, without some oversight would be impossible. We are able to get so many efficiencies by being in the Unites States. that the price of our products are very good and that’s critical because the lower your price is, the more children you can reach, and that’s obviously our main mission, trying to reach as many children as we can with the least amount of money. So, efficiency, or cost, is always the forefront of what were trying to work on and improve, its a constant progress.
Rosemary Nickel:
You obviously have a very supporting husband from the very beginning.
Navyn Salem:
Mostly, though at first he didnt think this was a good idea and he’s like, “You don’t have time for this, why are you taking this on? The kids are all little and its a busy household,” and all of that. I had two answers, one is, you’re always going to feel that way, perhaps, you’re always going to be busy. But, the cost of inaction after what I had seen was just such a bigger price and I just felt that I had this amazing opportunity to do something about and if I didn’t act on that even though I didn’t have hours and hours of free time, I just felt like I didnt have any choice. The second thing that really resonated with him is, I want to make sure, we have four girls, so raising girls, I don’t have any boys, so I cant compare it to anything, I want to make sure that these girls feel empowered and that they know they can accomplish big things if they set their mind to it. The only way I knew to teach them that is really to lead by example, so I felt that if I’m able to take this on, that they would think this is no big deal, anyone can do this. And that would lead them to be able to have lives that are full of meaning and serve a higher purpose, and if that was of any interest I wanted to show them it’s possible. I remember one time bringing them to the factory, they were quite little at the time, and they said, “Mom are you the boss here?” and I was like “yeah” and they were like “So you don’t have a boss? Everyone has to talk to you?” and I said, “Yeah, and I don’t want you to ever think thats unusual, that it’s expected, that’s what I expect of you young ladies to lead something and have that confidence to do that.” I wasn’t born with confidence, I was very shy, petrified young person. I just realized at some point, that if I wanted to make this difference, I had to get over a lot of my fears and take a leap of faith, to see if I could make it happen, so here we are.
Rosemary Nickel:
How much fear have you had in building this? I would imagine there is a lot of fear in every step of the creation of this.
Navyn Salem:
Absolutely, yeah. I even had a fear of public speaking but realized I had to just bite my lip and give it a go and see what happened. It gets easier every time and now its been many years at this point. We’re in a little factory in Providence, RI and we have more requests than we can keep up with so we’re running 24-hours a day right now, still struggling filling all of the orders that we have. We are going to take another leap of faith and construct a brand new factory. The main reasons for doing that is obviously to be able to respond faster to emergencies. Right now were producing for Syria, where obviously there’s been years of conflict and children who are at the center of this, sadly, and really need help from a food and nutrition perspective, and secondly, is producing for UNICEF for the West African region, as a whole, all of the countries in that region. That’s really to help support when you have something like Ebola hit West Africa, a lot of the other basic nutrition or basic health needs go by the wayside so people aren’t going for their vaccinations, sick people aren’t going to the hospital because they’re scared, so the ripple effect health impact in that region is a very scary predicament at the moment. So, for those reasons, we’ve decided we’re going to take a huge leap of faith and build a factory that will allow us to increase capacity. Most importantly, we know that there’s further efficiencies we can do to continue getting that price down by using some new technology that we have to really improve that process, so this is going to be an eighty-thousand square foot factory, which is quite large. Then, of course, even though we’re busy right now, we have to make sure that we keep busy, as well. So, its a little stressful.
Rosemary Nickel:
I would imagine its a little stressful. How do you get funding if you’re a nonprofit? How does your whole business plan work out for you?
Navyn Salem:
We are set up more like a social enterprise, so we are selling our products to UNICEF, USAID, Action Against Hunger, and groups like that, and they provide the products in kind, to the recipients. The children are not paying for this. We have set up that we need to charge enough to cover our costs, we also rely on grants for other initiatives. We are doing a lot of research and development looking at new products and other populations that we can be useful in. So for, for example, we have a new product intended just for pregnant and lactating mothers. We’ve also developed a product for school children, both in developing countries and right here in Providence. We’re doing a small program in a few Providence schools, and then the balance really comes from generous individuals, and those individual contributions make a huge difference to us as well. So if anyone has left over money at the end of the year that they want to donate somewhere, we will use it very responsibly. Please consider it. Giving a donation to Edesia before year-end would be amazing.
Rosemary Nickel:
So if grants and things like that that are helping you expand, have you gotten all of the funds you need to expand? Or are is that the part that you’re sweating and trying to find other grants? Because you also have to have someone who is really good at grant writing, which anybody who has ever tried that, knows that it’s crazy.
Navyn Salem:
Exactly, yeah its not easy, were putting a giant proposal together now. We have kind of an ongoing giving opportunity that really is important to lowering the costs, making sure that more children are able to have access to Plumpy’Nut and then separately we have a capital campaign that we’re about to kick off in which we need $3 million, to cover the expenses. We have found funding for the majority of this building project, so we’re currently $3 million short and we will kick off and have the next 18 months to be able to look for corporations or foundations or individuals who are willing to help us get there. The capital campaign is really an infrastructure investment. It will set up a factory that will run for the next 25 years, and be able to feed these children for the next 25 years. To me, that’s a great place to put money because it keeps giving over and over again and in this new factory we’ll be able to reach two-million children per year, and that’s not for 1 day, that’s usually for a 6-7 week period or longer, that we’re able to reach two-million children. To me, that’s an amazing return on investment and great place to put your money because it just keeps giving.
Rosemary Nickel:
You have several different kinds of butters, you have Plumpy’Nut, Plumpy’Sup, Plumpy’Doz and Nutributter. Are these in individual tubes?
Navyn Salem:
Yes, they’re in foil packets.
Rosemary Nickel:
I am thinking Justin’s Nut Butter, like you get at Starbucks?
Navyn Salem:
Yes, ours’ are about three times the size, except the Nutributter one. We have a preventative product that’s quite small. Every single product is very targeted for a specific purpose. So, we have Plumpy’Nut, which is for severe acute malnutrition. Children would get about three a day. Plumpy’Sup is for moderate acute malnutrition, they’d get one package a day. Nutributter is for prevention. It get’s very complicated, but they’re very targeted. We want to make sure we haven’t wasted a penny on a treatment, depending on what that child needs, no more or no less. Every situation is very different, whether it’s responding to a disaster or it’s more of a chronic situation.
Rosemary Nickel:
Each of these butters have some kind of nutrients added to give them what they need to survive and to become healthy and thrive?
Navyn Salem:
Correct, yes.
Rosemary Nickel:
Sometimes, all they’re getting is this to eat.
Navyn Salem:
If they’re malnourished, it’s like a food by prescription. The healthcare worker will prescribe, based on weight and age, an exact dosage that those kids need. For the severely malnourished, these are kids that can’t sit up on their own, their skin changes color, their skin starts to break away, you see their rib cages, their hair has turned very light because the nutrients are not present, and they just don’t have the strength to open their eyes, those kinds of kids will just get Plumpy’nut, and they’ll eat that three times a day for about seven weeks. In that 7 week period, I wish I could show you a picture, those kids, you almost don’t recognize them. You’ll see if they have a special thing in their hair, ok yes that’s the same kid, but they’re sitting up, their skin looks healthy, they’re smiling, just their everything physical about them changes in that period of time. That costs about $50 for that complete treatment, and to me, seeing that transition, we do that three thousand times a day here in our little factory. I have a picture of that before and after right next to the window where the boxes come out of production to remind everyone that this is not just a box coming down a conveyor belt, it’s a complete life transformation.
Rosemary Nickel:
If you want to send that picture to me, I will put it in my show notes. I would love to share that. My next question, though, is after that treatment and that process, what happens to their nutrition after the Plumpy’Nut is gone.
Navyn Salem:
Thats a great question. A lot of times, one very common scenario for needing Plumpy’Nut, imagine you are farming and the harvest is about two months away, so you’re family has run out of food, out of money, out of supplies, you’ll see a huge spike of children falling into malnutrition during that window. They just need a bridge to get them to when the harvest and the money comes back into the household. The malnutrition wards will become packed, so the organizations that are working on the ground typically know when they’re going to hit, so if we’re able to help deliver the nutrition those kids need for that two-month period, then the families are usually going to be okay. It could also be the loss of a parent, or something like that. Alternatively, if there’s a disaster situation, these families aren’t severely malnourished the minute after the disaster, but they’re food insecure, so if they’re not able to access their food or farm or anything like that we know that they’re going to need an intervention a little bit like Plumpy’Sup, they will become malnourished, we provide enough, usually we give a month supply at a time, in order to get them through, either if they’re setting up refugee camps or something else where regular food can come back into play. So, the intent with these products, is never to make a full meal replacement, ever, it’s to intervene with that basic nutrition that you need during whatever specific crisis is going on currently. Does that make sense?
Rosemary Nickel:
Yes, yes. Thank you for answering that question.
Navyn Salem:
We even track down to the actual package, with organizations like Unicef, when they go to the clinic every two weeks to get a new supply, they have to bring the packages in, to show that they weren’t sold on the black market, or fed to someone else in the family. The kids kind of have to prove that they’ve gained weight, that they’re getting taller and that the packages have been consumed by that child, so the control is very high because we really want to make sure that the intended recipients are getting what they need.
Rosemary Nickel:
It’s amazing the detail that you go into to make sure that this is happening, that you’re not just producing a product that’s getting sent somewhere. You’re really focused on the end result. How hard has it been to balance all of that and realize how involved you have to be to make that happen?
Navyn Salem:
No, I love going to the field and try to go regularly, because we work so hard here that we want to make sure that all of the hard work is getting exactly where it’s needed. Some people ask “Isn’t it sad or depressing to travel to these places?” And its not. We’re bringing hope wherever we go. These little packages are representation of potential and to be able to deliver that little bit of hope and potential for these parents and these kids, you cant help but smile and be happy that you’re part of this process, of making life for these mothers and children just a little bit better and thats why I’ve really enjoyed it. Even though a lot of these kids are in tough situations, I know they’re going to be fine, and that we had something to do with that is the greatest gift I could hope for.
Rosemary Nickel:
I can only imagine! How can people donate so that they can feel the gift they’re giving?
Navyn Salem:
If you go to EdesiaGlobal.org right on our home page there’s a button you can click on and we would be thrilled if anyone wants to participate in our journey and help us along the way. We also have a Facebook page under Edesia, as well, that my communications manager does a great job managing. She tries to post interesting information to get us all out of the bubble of “Oh my, I have so may carpools today” and take a minute to reflect, “I may have a lot of carpools today, but life isn’t so bad.” Not that we’re trying to make everyone miserable, thats not it, it’s just kind of a little reminder of what’s going on outside of our daily lives, and I need it as much as everybody else, to remember what to be thankful for.
Rosemary Nickel:
Exactly. I would love to talk about your name before we go, Edesia, the Roman goddess of food and plentiful banquets, which we have here in the U.S., plenty. Although, there are kids in the U.S., that actually is becoming a big problem in the U.S., who aren’t getting food. How did you find the name?
Navyn Salem:
In these times of the internet, it’s very hard to come up with something original, so I think after twelve other tries, I said maybe I should go to mythology and see what we’ve got going on there. Edesia, I just love that she was a goddess of food and we have a lot of amazing women who work here in all positions of our company. That was one of my other dreams to support women and their refugee population here. We have many refugees here working in our factory too, so she just seemed to represent what I thought this organization could be, and to see it now as a reality, five years in, I just feel immensely lucky, fortunate and happy to be here.
Rosemary Nickel:
Well, it’s been wonderful talking to you. What you’re doing is just truly amazing. Thank you for taking time our of your day to share, and for my listeners its EdesiaGlobal.org, it will be in the show notes, and in the upper right hand corner there’s the little button that says Please Give, Children in Crisis Need You. And you said it was $50 for one child?
Navyn Salem:
Yes, $50 equals one child, which is one box of Plumpy’Nut.
Rosemary Nickel:
Thank you so much, and have a happy holiday!
Navyn Salem:
Yes, thank you for having me. It was lots of fun. I wish everyone a happy holidays, too!
Key Takeaways
[00:01:39] Navyn talks about how she started with Edesia.
[00:03:41] Navyn discusses her first research trip to Africa.
[00:05:49] Navyn shares the history of Plumpy’Nut.
[00:07:10] Navyn explains juggling her family and entrepreneurship.
[00:08:26] A look at Africa.
[00:11:06] Taking your kids abroad to learn.
[00:15:24] Exposing your children to safe and unsafe situations around the world.
[00:18:36] Funding for Edesia.
[00:21:20] Navyn’s supporting husband.
[00:23:54] Overcoming fear and expanding Edesia.
[00:26:18] Grants and other funding for Edesia.
[00:27:00] New products.
[00:27:57] Why Edesia is a infrastructure investment.
[00:29:47] About the products and how they work, and why they’re important.
[00:36:41] How to contribute to Edesia.
Mentioned in This Episode
http://www.edesiaglobal.org/
https://www.facebook.com/EdesiaGlobalNutrition
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