Nutrition

Is there a chance kids could snack their way to good health? This project is developing snacks fortified with iron-rich rice bran, an abundant by-product of rice processing typically discarded, burned, fed to animals or turned into cooking oil. The project will engage local expertise in food and chemistry, and capitalize on the "culture of snacking" in the Philippines, a country where iron deficiency affects 70% of children, leading to anemia and other debilitating conditions.

Our project will help solve the problem of malnutrition among vulnerable people through nutrition and hygiene skills development. It will use positive deviance hearth approach and growth monitoring which will stand as evidence based to scale up to large number of beneficiaries. It will be implemented in Caritas, Rwanda, targeting poor and vulnerable people in the rural area.

The medical tool to be developed within the MicroScreen Project will help to improve the quality of life of the people, especially of mothers and young children and the therapy of critical ill patients in low-resource environments.

We aim to develop a diagnostic tool using molecular approaches, that can quickly and accurately identify children with SAM, who are susceptible to an increased risk of death from infection after apparent stabilization during treatment for SAM.

By developing a local nutritional supplement, along with a rewards system to incentivize companies to pay for and sustain its production and free distribution, this project will improve nutritional status among children ages six months to five years in slums.

Poor sanitation poses a major health threat. Human excreta released into the environment without treatment causes illness and death. Every 15 seconds, a child dies due to contaminated water from human feces, with the situation being the worst in urban slums. Peepoople is rethinking sanitation with the design of a personal, self-sanitising and fully biodegradable toilet that prevents feces from contaminating the immediate area, as well as the surrounding ecosystem. After use, Peepoo turns human waste into valuable fertiliser that can improve livelihoods and increase food security.

The primary focus of this study in Pakistan will be improving the food production under reduced water conditions to feed the ever increasing population of the world.

The ""Sustainable Aquatic Agriculture for Lakes"project, of Grupo Cabal in Nicaragua and the University of Costa Rica in Costa Rica, will test technologies to cultivate aquatic plants and horticultural and grain crops on floatation, contributing to increase food production without spending fresh water beyond what normally evaporates from lakes.

Many rural households often get excess food at harvesting time but thereafter face deficits and undernutrition due to poor storage and bad planning for surplus. We will develop an innovative food banking scheme to reduce wastage and malnutrition.

Cowpea (AKA black-eyed pea) is a high-protein superfood, well-suited to growing in even the dry, poor soil conditions of sub-Saharan Africa. It isn't widely consumed in the region, however, due to the flatulence it causes - a problem that could be reduced by sugar-reducing enzymes, or by soaking and other techniques. With partners at the University of Guelph, cowpea-based hummus, flour and other products will be tested, with product promotion through social groups, retail outlets and other avenues. For more information visit: http://giiafrica.org/