A Field Fellow’s Arrival

The feeling before new adventure.  Why isn’t there a word in the English language for this?  Excitement.  Fear.  Happiness.  Nervousness.  Exhaustion.  All muddled together in what a dear friend would describe as “emotional fullness.”  That’s the best phrase I’ve got. I, a rather emotionally-full and extremely bedraggled human, stumbled out of the Bangalore airport at 4:00 am on Thursday, September 19.  I had passed through the trials and tribulations of the 30 hour journey thus

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Malnutrition and the Impact on Health

Malnutrition is a public health issue affecting children under the age of five worldwide. 50% of the 10-11 million children under the age of 5 die each year from malnutrition and the preventable health consequences (Collins et al., 2006). Malnutrition is a result of inadequate nutrition to support growth and development of infants and young children. The absence of the essential macro and micronutrients such as protein-specific fats, vitamins and minerals contribute to maternal and

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A Global Neighborhood and a Beloved Community: Reflecting on the work and words of Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15th was MLK Day this year in the United States, a federal holiday dedicated to the life and work of the American civil rights activist and pioneer Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  MLK Day has long been an important holiday for me personally, a time to reflect on service, community, and the social equity which we still struggle daily to achieve as a society. Famously, Dr. King’s philosophies of nonviolence were heavily inspired by

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Cultivating Development through Sports

Growing up, I can’t recall one time in which I was ever told there was something I couldn’t do or achieve.  As one of six children, with three sisters and two brothers, my immediate family has always been female heavy. My larger family seems to follow the same pattern, with strong, accomplished women far outnumbering men. Having grown up in such a matriarchal family, it was hard for me to imagine an environment in which

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Growing the Next Generation: Sustainable Farming and Nutrition for India’s Youth

In 2006, 47% of India’s children under the age of five were underweight.[1] After ten years, the country has seen slow, steady improvements, but the 2.4% annual decline in children who have experienced stunted growth[2] has not been enough to achieve the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals,[3] a set of objectives set forth by the UN in 2000 to decrease poverty and increase health worldwide.  One of these eight goals was to have halved the

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