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- We can adjust the muffin recipe as we see fit, and it won’t affect the customers taste preference drastically. We can optimize our food to be as cost-effective as possible. We must stay in normal ranges for the product, but by cutting some of the cornmeal and the bananas that we use, we can cut the cost of the muffin by 20%.
- Our business plan is viable. After talking with local street vendors, and larger-scale contacts that work all over Sierra Leone, as long as we sell for between 1,000 and 2,000 SLL, our product has the ability to be very popular in Sierra Leone.
- The other solutions truly aren’t working. Nobody uses the therapeutic foods on a regular basis due to price and the long term effects they have, not to mention not all children will eat them. Plumpy’nut averaged between 3,000-5,000 SLL, and Bennimix for a weeks supply was close to 50,000 SLL. Nobody buys and uses them. We can fix that.
- We were in charge. Having no faculty leader with us meant that we really had to get work done by ourselves or it won’t happen. Learning to be a leader in a more uncomfortable position like Sierra Leone was an amazing experience. Not to mention that we were in charge of our budgets and paying our employees which is just an added responsibility but it made us better for it.
- Interaction with a different culture. I’ve only ever been inside of the United States my whole life. Traveling to Sierra Leone opened up a whole new side to me. Seeing the living conditions and the way that people are affected just by everyday life truly changed my life forever. The world is much larger than I ever thought possible and I’m excited to continue to learn and explore and meet the people of the different culture around the world.
- Meetings with world leaders in Health care. I was able to meet with Kerry Joe from CHAMPS and was offered a position doing research with Naakesh if we ever wanted to. That along with the experience, in general, changed my career path and I am now driven yo go back and spend 1-2 years hopefully working on clinical trials for the muffins and their effectiveness while I am there. I was there for 20 days, but it was not enough.
- Before this trip, I had a very limited view of the world. I’ve lived in Bethlehem my whole life. Now that I’ve been to Sierra Leone, I know I want to go back. Experiencing another culture like that, and truly being integrated into it was an experience I could not have gotten anywhere else. It truly has opened my mind up to a new way of thinking.
- The trip taught me to be more self-sufficient. Everyone has a shock when they first go to college, an overhauling feeling of freedom and power. Going to Sierra Leone was like that but amplified. You had to ensure that you were taking care of yourself and watching out for others around you as well. This trip taught me how to work and live really on my own and how to prioritize what is really important day to day.
- I made life long friends. One of our translators Yakuba really had an impact on me in Sierra Leone. He was inspirational in his drive to do good work and help us however he could. He and I would wind-up in long conservation about everything from Man U soccer to life in general. One the day when I had to leave him it really sunk in, that I was able to go back to my privileged life, but he would stay in Sierra Leone. That thought and the thoughts that followed really changed me as a person and Yakuba himself did as well.
