#thousanddays

Mil Dias beautiful cedar stained wood box. A simple design makes this keepsake seem at home in both a more professional setting as well as in a home.

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Mil Dias "Thousand Days" beautiful cedar stained wood box. A simple design makes this keepsake seem at home in both a more professional setting as well as in a home.

Measures 9" x 6.25" x 2"

Day 4: Food on the table

I walked from Richmond to Alameda with Angela Boss from Foods Resource Bank. The walk consisted of two stretches, the first one brought us to the Youth Hostel in Berkeley,  where Michelle Mason, shelter manager and peer counselor showed us around the drop in center for youth between 18-25 years old. The hostel is open for six months a year November to May, and they provide food and shelter to the young people.

The final stretch to the Alameda Food Bank was tough as we had to walk through a car tunnel with a small pedestrian path. We could hardly breath. Executive Director Hank Leeper runs the facility, an awesome and dedicated person who leads an amazing staff of volunteers. CROP Hunger Walk funds their efforts.

In the evening my colleague Vy Nguyen  and Pat de Jong (a CWS board member) organized an awesome reception at Vanessa' s Bistro. We filled this great Vietnamese resto with a mix of people who knew about CWS and some who did not. They especially asked me to speak about my experiences in Indonesia, I always enjoy doing that.

There was even a couple (the husband was a farmer of Dutch origin and friends of Angela Boss) that drove two hours to get to the reception! The reception was incredible, led by Bistro manager Vi and her mother, Vanessa. Further, the event was supported by CWS, Theresa Tavares and her husband, Marcus Duncan, Patricia de Jong, Scott Sporte (Slippery Slope) and Scott Hafner (Hafner Vineyard). CWS staff Matt Hackworth and Julie Brumana also deserve lots of thanks with their assistance.

It was very inspiring to feel the positive energy of those present, all ready to make their contributions big and small to make this world a bit better. They all seem to be ready for the upcoming  Bay Area Hunger Walk this weekend. It made me ready for the next day despite the fact that the pain in my right shin was still very much bothering me.

Conversations with Professor Jessica Fanzo part 2

  My talk with Jess continues. I asked her about 1000 days, what we can do ourselves and what her opinion is about sustainable consumption and diet. I learned from it, I hope you too.

The morning of my birthday

I was planning to do a very long walk to the office yesterday as a kind of a treat for my birthday, but I just spent too much time on answering emails and doing my early morning reading (more about this in a later post) and I ended up having to sprint to the PATH and MTA not to miss an appointment with the Country Director Helen Keller International Indonesia Silvana Faillace. Silvana came to Indonesia right after I left, so our interactions in Indonesia are actually almost non-existent (except for one meeting), but it feels that we know each other for a long time. She has done a good job in the relatively short time she has been working in Indonesia. Anyway, reason for her visit to the CWS office was because I had invited her to do a presentation on the findings of a collaborative study of HKI and CWS (our own doctor and nutritionist Julia Suryantan of the office in Indonesia represented us) on Micronutrient Powders (MNP) in Timor Leste. As UNICEF and the Ministry of Health in Timor Leste are the funders of this project and the report has not been fully cleared as yet, I can't share the findings in this blog, but what I do want to share is the potential of MNP in addressing malnutrition for young children. Silvana did an excellent job in informing my CWS colleagues and we had a very engaging discussion at the end of her presentation. I wish her a happy birthday, because she was born on February 10. (btw: when I arrived at the office, my table was full of birthday cards and a great birthday cake -thank you CWS colleagues- ...., so then I had to walk from the office to the birthday dinner -instead of the subway- to make up for it.)

Importance of first Thousand Days Silvana reminded us that children, particularly those younger than 2, are at special risk of hunger. The consequences of malnutrition during this critical window of development are long-term and irreversible. Poor fetal growth and/or persistent undernutrition early in life causes permanent damage, including diminished intellectual capacity, impaired immune function and shorter height. These problems lead to lower achievement in school and lower productivity on the job. Malnutrition is such a central issue that no fewer than three of the eight U.N. Millennium Development Goals depend on improving nutrition—eradicating hunger, improving maternal health, and reducing child mortality. Fortunately, slowly the issue has captured people's attention and interest due to well-documented human and economic toll malnutrition takes on women and young children, and now more and more people know about the importance of Thousand Days Initiative and Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) - both are undersigned by CWS.

Micronutrient Powders There is is a lot of evidence on what works to prevent or treat malnutrition. For example, sachets of powder containing key micronutrients (MNP) are cheap to produce and easy to use. Mixed with food and given to children, their effect on cognitive development is well-documented. What we can say at this moment about the findings of the study is that MNP could do a lot of good for the future of Timor Leste, one of the countries with the highest malnutrition rates in the world. Not only would more children survive infancy, but by preventing or aggressively treating malnutrition during the first two years of life, these children would grow up to be healthier, more productive adults. Money we raise with our walks will be able to contribute to make the future for Timor Leste a bit brighter. So, there are plenty of reasons to stand up and walk.

PS When i checked the fundraising page, I was amazed, I have already 7 donations! I am humbled and impressed by the support. Also the encouraging facebook comments are great. Keep it coming.