We plan to work with WAEV to develop safe, effective weaning formula for Maasai mothers to produce and sell using locally-grown ingredients. Our formula will provide enough protein, calories, and other nutrients to meet food needs, while providing a source of income for Maasai women, who typically have less purchasing power and earn less income than Maasai men, despite doing much of the work around their homes and villages. By empowering women to both earn money and provide food in an affordable, sustainable way to themselves and others in their community, we hope to reduce child malnutrition among the Maasai and assist in laying the groundwork for greater empowerment of women through additional projects WAEV plans to undertake in the future.
Our research consists of three main areas of focus:
Aside from the research in the areas above, our project's other focus has been helping get WAEV off the ground from a business/marketing perspective: we're building them a website, training them how to use the software to maintain it, and providing advice and resources on things like email newsletters and marketing. While applying the insights from our research is something that will have to be implemented in future groups, WAEV will be able to walk away from the quarter with a new online presence and the information to move forward with project implementation with the next group.
Aside from our team of three, the two co-founders of WAEV are the people we'll be working with most directly during our project. Saing’orie Sangau is WAEV's founder, and works on the ground in Tanzania to help implement the solutions that WAEV works on with Lendikinya. Clifton (Clif) Hiebsch is WAEV's co-founder, and represents the US-based portion of WAEV. Clif's in charge of arranging the business-side logistics for WAEV, and has also been meeting with us during our project to help get things off the ground.
While our project is largely research-based (Clif is having us research formulas, packaging options, and ways to structure the implementation of the program having Maasai women produce the formula), our eventual goal is to deliver insights to WAEV that they can then take forward and hopefully use as a basis for implementing the program in the future. Of course, we do have some tangible deliverables as well, like the WAEV website, which we hope to have live by the end of the quarter.
That's not to say that the project is not without its challenges: first and foremost, we're responsible for accurately evaluating the nutritional needs of people in an environment and living in circumstances that are rather different from our own. In addition, we don't have a way to directly contact people of the Lendikinya community for input and are instead relying on information from WAEV, so ensuring that we develop the project with not only empathy for, but inclusion of the people who will benefit from it is going to be a challenge. Lastly, we need to ensure that whatever packaging and processes we suggest are sensitive to cultural norms in Lendikinya, and pose no unnecessary hardships or challenges for the community once implemented.
To better understand the impact of our project on all involved, we've also completed a brief Stakeholder's Analysis, following the template provided by MIT's Amy Smith. You can download a PDF of our Stakeholder Analysis here.