The story behind the photograph

"The picture of the man and the boy on the beach was taken in Mumbai. The high rises in the background are in the wealthy section of Mumbai.

I wasn't sure if the man was begging or greeting us he was almost too weak to raise his arm. There were no women in the immediate area so I don't know what the story is about the boy. There were other people on the beach looking for things that might have washed on to shore.I gave him a little money because he looked like he could use it and because I took his picture. He was friendly in a sad way." - Steve Laible, CTI Volunteer 

Don't forget that Dr. Shiv and Gale Murty have issued a challenge grant for CTI's project to address Severe Acute Malnutrition in India. Total donations before December 31, 2010 up to $5,000 will be matched 100% by Shiv and Gale. Shiv, a project lead and long time volunteer with CTI, is a graduate of the India Institute of Technology - Bombay (a partner of this project) and a retired food scientist with General Mills.
 

World Food Day 2010 - Combating Severe Acute Malnutrition among Children in India

Saturday, October 16th is World Food Day, and in honor of the occasion, we are reflecting on the 8 million children in India suffering from severe malnutrition--innocents who were born in a country where 47% of children are malnourished.

Children in India don't just suffer from a lack of food, but a lack of a balanced diet including essential vitamins and minerals. In the worst cases, children will succumb to Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM)--malnutrition that is so severe, the body begins consuming its own tissues. If untreated, SAM results in death or permanent physical and mental stunting--perpetuating poverty and hunger for generations.

A Revolutionary New Treatment 

Until a few years ago, SAM was treated--rather unsuccessfully--by hospitalization or dry food therapy, and only 25-40% of children survived. Miraculously, there has been a recent revolution in the treatment of SAM with the development of vitamin fortified, energy-dense food formulations-Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTFs). RUTFs rapidly put weight on malnourished children and are typically comprised of a mixture of ground peanuts, powdered milk, sugar, vegetable oil, and vitamins and minerals. With an 85% patient recovery rate, RUTF treatment is simply the cheapest and most effective treatment in existence.

Now is the Time to Act

CTI engineers, nutritionists, and food scientists have developed an RUTF formulation composed of peanuts and other ingredients that can be found in India. With your support, CTI will establish pilot facilities in India to produce RUTF with local ingredients and local workers. The product will be distributed through the Sion Hospital Group in Mumbai for formal clinical trials under the direction of recognized pediatricians. Once operational, the process will be scaled-out and the RUTF will be offered to thousands of severely malnourished children in India.

Help us Save Lives

We can't continue this project without your help. Dr. Shiv and Gale Murty have issued a challenge grant for this project. Total donations before December 31, 2010 up to $5,000 will be matched 100% by Shiv and Gale. Shiv, a project lead and long time volunteer with CTI, is a graduate of the India Institute of Technology - Bombay (a partner of this project) and a retired food scientist with General Mills.

UMN Students and CTI Inspire Young Entrepreneurs in Tanzania

By Kathleen Clonts, CTI Volunteer

Innovative thinking by students is putting two grinders provided by Compatible Technology International (CTI) to a vital new use in Tanzania.

Two University of Minnesota master’s students worked with students at a school run by Eden Prairie-based Peace House Africa west of Arusha, Tanzania, this summer to brainstorm business uses for two grinders donated by CTI.

The Minnesota students, Samuel Lee and Melanie Plucinski, instructed about 80 students at the Peace House Secondary School in the fundamentals of creating and running a business, from product development to market research. The students came up with an original product concept using the CTI grinders: corn flour that is fortified with moringa leaves, which provide a significant source of beta carotene, vitamin C, protein, calcium, iron and potassium. The flour will add flavor and important nutrients to porridge as well as the traditional Tanzanian corn-based staple called Ugali.

But first the students are raising money to grow moringa trees on the school campus. They hope to begin harvesting the leaves next year, grinding them and putting their business plan into action to create jobs and meet the nutritional needs of local people.


The CTI grinders were donated to Peace House Africa, which runs the school near Arusha for AIDS orphans and vulnerable children. The school’s goal is to build students’ problem-solving and entrepreneurial skills so they will help create a sustainable future for their homeland.

Rebuilding Lives in Haiti

When the devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January, Madame Aliette Belizaire was among the millions whose lives were changed forever. In the aftermath of this horrific disaster, Madame Belizaire discovered that her daughter had been killed in the quake and her that husband was missing, leaving her with two grandchildren and eight remaining children of her own to look after. As days passed and the crisis continued, Madame Belizaire and her family made the heart-wrenching decision to leave Port-Au-Prince.

After traveling to the southwest city of Jeremie, Madame Belizaire and her family were provided a small home by the Haitian Health Foundation, where they began rebuilding their lives, growing corn and other crops to support their family. In May, Compatible Technology International (CTI) sent a food grinder to the Belizaire family. Within days of receiving this simple device, the whole family was processing crops into enough food to eat as well as to sell in the local market. The family began using the grinder to make Akasan, a corn-based porridge meal, and peanut butter, which is important for relieving malnourishment in the children of the area who have kwashiorkor - a severe protein deficiency. The family will use the grinder to feed themselves and to prepare peanut butter which they will continue to sell at the market. All of the children will be able to attend school with the money generated from these sales.

Although it's been seven months since the earthquake hit Port-Au-Prince, the extreme poverty that dictates the lives of 80% of the country continues, and the truth is, without addressing Haiti's chronic hunger and malnutrition, Haitians will continue to be vulnerable to the next earthquake, flood, or famine.

CTI is partnering with organizations in Haiti to identify communities and families that can use simple, post harvest technologies to produce more nutritious food and generate incomes. CTI needs help from supporters like you who are willing to step in when relief falls short. Donate now to contribute to CTI's efforts toward sustainable development in Haiti and around the world.

CTI in Kenya

By Kathleen Graham, CTI Volunteer, Kenya

Beneath enormous African skies the rolling mountainsides of far Western Kenya are lush green with the spring rains. Farmers anxiously watch the crops they planted in February - will the rain be enough, erasing droughts of recent years; or too much, drowning the beautifully emerging fields of maize, soya beans, sorghum, and ground nuts? Too soon to tell, but hope is everywhere.

ICRISAT driver Daniel Kisavi confidently guides our four-wheel drive over deeply rutted dirt roads often reduced to one lane, from our base at Homa Bay, on the swampy shores of Lake Victoria. So far this week I have visited five of the seven farmers’ groups who sent a participant to the Ewing training session in February, 2009. CTI, with support from the Graham Service Fund (thank you to my relatives and friends), co-sponsored this event, along with ICRISAT (thank you Richard Jones), KARI (Kenya Agricultural Research Institute) and the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture. Richard introduced me to KARI and the Ag Ministry, who recruited the participants.

At the two-day training each participant learned to disassemble, assemble, and clean the Ewing grinders. And we each took a turn processing local crops - g-nuts, sorghum, finger millet, cow peas and “green gram,” learning to adjust the burrs so the final product would be just the right texture for local taste. And each participant was tested – could s/he stand up and teach the teachers what s/he had learned?? All passed, some barely. Would they be able to convey a few key Ewing principles to their farmer members?

This week is the real test. How have the six grinders that were loaned to the participants’ groups been used? More than half way through the week, even if nothing else positive comes to light, this pilot project exactly fulfills the CTI mission. The farmers in these groups live on agricultural land 40, 50, even 70 kilometers off the tarmac. They carry water from rivers or bore holes every day for family use. They eat what they grow, and little else. Their homes lack electricity, plumbing, and other “modern conveniences.” Yet they tend neat enclosures of chickens and goats, hand hoe a few acres of crops, are well-organized; they take advantage of improved seed from ICRISAT distributed by KARI, and they have used the grinders well, to improve nutrition and to generate small amounts of income, which they share. 

Two groups, the Helima Widow’s Self-Help Group and St. Florence’s Self Help Group, share a grinder. All 42 members have been taught to use the grinder. They use it EVERY DAY!! Before the grinder was delivered in February, 2009, most sold their ground nuts whole. A few made nut paste using a mortar and pestle, spreading the mash on flat stones, to be worked with another stone. Now all members use the grinder to make paste from their nuts, and sell the paste at the local market, where they report there is very strong demand for the high quality product they produce. They also use the paste in what I can only describe as “designer ugee”, a porridge made from sorghum, grain amaranth, finger millet, and cassava, flavored with a little citrus juice and sugar. They have tried to market this nutritious porridge, but it is more expensive than the ugee commonly produced, and people do not understand the value of the new product. For the time being, they feed the new ugee to their families, and take orders from others who want it. Interestingly, it is people with a family member in hospital who have ordered the new ugee, as they feel it is the best food for the sick.

We were served a cake made from soya flour, grain amaranth and nut paste – before the grinder provided the opportunity to make these “custom flours” easily, these groups never baked a cake!! They are experimenting, using sorghum and finger millet to make “finger rolls.” The regional KARI manager who was accompanying me, Nasambu Okoko, was visibly excited by these developments. She had them repeat the ingredients of the cake and the ugee, several times, noting repeatedly herself how nutritious and how novel these products are in this area.

The grinder has been a catalyst for these two groups, “boosting” their horizon and stimulating further activity. Several farmers have increased their ground nut plantings this season, spurred by the knowledge they can add value to the nuts before they go to market, and the profit will stay in their pockets.

Perhaps by the standards of entrepreneurship in the developed world the few extra dollars each farmer in these groups earns this year is paltry, but where we sit in Nyototo township the pride and excitement they share as we munch a newly baked cake is priceless.

It is late, and we are scheduled to leave for another group in the morning, although the ongoing downpour tonight might delay us, as we wait for the sun to dry the roads from slippery mud to navigable dirt. More later.

San Salvador AgroExpo Day 4

By LeAnn Taylor, CTI Volunteer, El Salvador

It will be my 4th day at the AgroExpo today and I have made some very important contacts. There are currently 5 very interested people who want to both make and sell the grinders here, and two more who just want to manufacture them. I plan to visit at least three workshops tomorrow. One vendor had the idea of modifying the in-country burrs so they could be used on our bodies. Then the users could have our burrs for their dry goods and the local ones for making corn masa. It's a great idea because the local taste does not like the texture that our burrs make for masa and yet it's the most common food they grind here.

Another thing that has been very fun is: we have invited the skeptical inquirers to bring their product in for a test. As a result, we have had three people bring corn, hibiscis, and lemon grass. Of course, the grinder performed perfectly making both course pieces for tea and fine for products like soap. I think we'll have two sales from those. The spices smelled wonderful and the hibiscis turned everything on the grinder pink.

The Salvadorans are wonderfully warm and friendly and also very entrepreneurial. They really love the new business idea when they see it. I am feeling very optimistic about this project.

Arrival in San Salvador

Last year, CTI was contacted by CENTA (Center for Agrarian and Forest Technology), an arm of El Salvador’s Department of Agriculture, to help the organization promote the grinding of sorghum. Sorghum is a nutritious grain that grows in El Salvador in contrast with wheat, which is much more expensive, less nutritious, and has to be imported. There is a big demand for grinders in El Salvador to grind corn, wheat, and sorghum into flour, and although there are other grinders available in El Salvador, CTI’s devices are much better in quality and are even less expensive.

I traveled to El Salvador last summer to explore how CTI can help with sorghum grinding. I brought a wood grinder model, a new option that was developed by CTI so that manufacturers in El Salvador would be able to make the grinder body themselves, a lower-cost alternative. The response from locals was very enthusiastic. Many people wanted CTI’s grinders, but unfortunately, without an in-country distributor to supply and market the grinders, CTI’s equipment could only be exposed to a small number of people, and grinders would only be available by shipping them from our headquarters in Saint Paul, an expensive and slow process.

I am now returning to El Salvador to increase CTI’s visibility in the agricultural community and to look for a local distributor. I'm just getting in after a 10 hour day demonstrating CTI grinders at an AgroExpo in San Salvador, El Salvador. You can't believe how many people there are coming through that place; they say it's 100,000 per day. The Expo is is just like the Minnesota State Fair - a large campus with several buildings, animal corrals, and horses going through the crowd.

I made some good connections today and I think I've already sold the extra grinder I brought with me for demonstration. There was much interest in the wooden grinder, more than I would have expected, and I met at least 3 people who were sincerely interested in becoming vendors, maybe even manufacturers.

Vilma, my contact with CENTA, tells me that her organization will begin expanding its sorghum promotion into Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua within two months and she has the support of all of CENTA, even the Agriculture Minister, so that is looking very positive as well.

On Tuesday, I hope to visit a women's cooperative that wants a grinder, so it looks like I'll get into the field after all.