Matt Feryo: GSIF Blog Post #2

Cultural issues play a huge role in the malnutrition project, especially among the 6-23 months age group. One of the biggest issues regarding this project is that the women of the household take so much pride in the food that they make for their children. Often times they have been making the same recipes for decades, passed down through generations. Introducing an entirely new food product disrupts this continuity and may not be appreciated by the women in Sierra Leone. Additionally, the people of Sierra Leone have some “food taboos” that may seem strange to outsiders, but are practiced regularly in their country. One specific taboo that comes to my head is a simple banana. Mother’s will not feed their sons bananas because somewhere in their history, it was established that bananas would stunt the penile growth of young boys. These “food taboos” make it difficult to create food product. One final issue is their lack of clean, consumable water. This requires water to be boiled prior to use which takes time and energy. A perfect food product would be able to be eaten without requiring the mothers to gather water on their own.

For the most part, I have not experienced many of these situations at my home in America. Something that I have experienced frequently is family recipes. My mother and grandmother specifically have many family recipes that they value and sometimes asking to make the recipe a different way insults them. Another time that I have experienced similar cultural situations was when I went camping and cooked my meals over the campfire. It took a fairly long time for water to boil over the fire, compared to a common house stove. Lastly, this example may not exactly align with an example from Sierra Leone, but my mom no longer makes bacon for anyone in my house after research came out suggesting that it may be carcinogenic.

Some of these cultural practices can be leveraged to make our product more desirable. One of the more obvious cultural practice that we can leverage is the difficulty getting clean water. If we could develop a product that doesn’t require any water at all, I think the product would be very popular. It would distinguish the product from other food supplements that are already in practice and it would make preparation much easier for the mothers. Additionally, if we market the product correctly avoiding any “cultural taboos”, the people of Sierra Leone may be willing to try our product. Finally, if we are able to somehow show the mothers that our product significantly helps their children to be healthier, maybe they will be willing to try a new recipe.

Not only does the culture of Sierra Leone present challenges to our venture, the location of Sierra Leone does as well. Being on the west coast of Africa, many resources that are available in the United States are not as available in Sierra Leone and thus more expensive. While trying to make a product that is affordable, additional expenses should be limited. Also, our product should be readily available for people all throughout the country. In a country with limited highways and roads, it may be difficult to distribute our product. Finally, in such an agriculturally rich country, many people in Sierra Leone prefer to eat the food that they grow on their farm. This would make it difficult to introduce a pre-prepared product into their diets.

While the African continent presents several challenges it also presents a few advantages. For instance, while there are a few resources that are not as available as they are elsewhere in the world, thereĀ  are some resources that are significantly more available in Africa than they are elsewhere. For instance, peanuts and cassava and incredibly cheap and readily available in Sierra Leone. Another resource that is unique to Africa is their marketplace. People travel from all over to go to their respective markets to buy their food. This offers a perfect place for us to sell our product once it is developed. Finally, the closeness of women in Sierra Leone offers a perfect way for our product to be publicized. Through word of mouth, mothers could talk about our new product and hopefully make it popular.

Week 1 Blog Post – CINQ 396

Signing up for the Creative Inquiry classes was an easy decision for me. The Malnutrition project allows me to research an area of the world that I am not very familiar with and allows me to make a difference. I began working on the Malnutrition project last semester and quickly became attached to it. I was also attracted to the uniqueness of the program. Often times I find myself wondering in a typical lecture, where and how am I going to apply this knowledge to the real world. The Global Social Impact Fellowship gives me the opportunity to learn how to apply the knowledge that I have acquired throughout my academic career. In my opinion this skill is crucial to being successful in the future. Finally, helping others is something that I feel should be a part of everyone’s life. Being able to positively impact the lives of an entire population is truly an opportunity that I could not pass up.

As a bioengineer, we are taught how to think creatively and problem solve. I don’t think there is another program at Lehigh, or anywhere, that more accurately addresses these two skills. At the start of the Malnutrition project, our group was given a simple problem statement, and from there we had to determine how we would address the problem with advice from our mentors. While this project helps me to learn how to think creatively and problem solve, it also teaches me what life is actually like in the workforce. In school, we are used to being given a problem and solving for the answer, and for the most part there is always an answer. I know now that this is absolutely not the case in the real world. The path to the solution is not predetermined and is not direct. The solution to our Malnutrition project will take years and the minds of many individuals to determine.

Compared to the rest of the world, the African continent is extremely deficient in physicians. Training to become a physician is expensive and time consuming. For this reason, citizens in many African countries have a difficult time addressing their health-related issues. For instance, there is almost no access to optometrists in many countries throughout Africa. Even still, access to these doctors often requires a lot of travel time and is expensive for people who live off a very low income. Living with unaddressed eye deficiencies can be incredibly disruptive to the lives of a person. It would effect every aspect of a person’s life, including their work. Eye deficiencies would make productivity levels much lower and could lead to an individual losing their job and/or not receiving the compensation that they would if they had adequate eye sight. Addressing this lack of optical care is something that entrepreneurs and humanitarians have been trying to address for years and have been unsuccessful. There are many things to consider before just coming up with a plan. How will 1,000,000,000+ people get eye exams that are affordable and accessible? Do these people even want glasses? Often times, there are cultural differences in other countries that people do not take into consideration when developing a plan. For instance, some cultures may view eye glasses as a sign of weakness and thus, would refuse to wear them. In my opinion, I do not think there is a feasible way to simply distribute glasses that are easily accessible, affordable, and effective to the entire continent of Africa. So, my next thought is to figure outĀ why so many people are suffering from optical deficiencies. There are many reasons why people can have blurry vision. In most cases, it is just natural for someone to develop blurry vision. However, there are some cases where blurry vision can be prevented and, interestingly enough, they can be connected to the Malnutrition project. Deficiencies in certain nutrients such as Vitamin A can damage parts of the eye and lead to blurry vision that is preventable. So, one way to address this issue would be to develop a food supplement! The supplement would have to include ingredients that contain high values of Vitamin A, while also making sure the product is something that would go along with the population’s everyday diet. After the product is developed, we would have to determine how the product would be manufactured and distributed so that it was easily accessible. Although this solution would not address eye deficiencies in their entirety, I believe that it would make a notable impact over time.