But when nurses begin handing out packets of a fortified peanut-based paste called Plumpy’Nut , the malnourished children respond within minutes, she said.
PROVIDENCE — Whenever Navyn Salem enters a malnutrition clinic, she notices the silence. “It’s silent because these kids literally aren’t able to move,” she said.
“They’re sitting up. They’re communicative. They’re engaging with you, looking in your eyes,” Salem said. “And that is something that is remarkable every single time I see it.”
On the Rhode Island Report podcast, Salem talks about Edesia Nutrition, the Rhode Island-based nonprofit social enterprise that she founded and runs, and how it plans to use the $137 million it is receiving from the Bezos family to double production and feed 10 million children per year.
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Edesia Nutrition factory in North Kingstown, R.I. Edward Fitzpatrick
Based in North Kingstown, Edesia is named for the Roman goddess of food. Partnering with humanitarian aid groups such as USAID, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme, it has fed 22 million malnourished children since it was formed in 2010.
And now it is poised to step up production just as war is raging in Ukraine and Gaza, and as climate change is disrupting lives across the globe.
“The problem is growing in terms of the number of conflicts and, for sure, climate change — both are growing,” Salem said. “At the same time, I know that at Edesia, we doubled last year. We doubled the amount of food that we made, which means it translates directly into doubling the amount of children we reached. So we reached 5 million children last year.”
A child holds a packet of Plumpy’Nut fortified peanut-based paste. Courtesy of Edesia Nutrition
Salem said the Bezos family funding will help to increase production and fund research.
“I want to fund research that can move the needle now — not in 10 years,” she said. “I don’t have the patience for 10 years, nor do children who are sitting in Gaza or sitting in Ukraine. They don’t have the capacity to wait anymore. And so we need to do more, and better, and demand action.”
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Salem also demanded action when she addressed a United Nations Security Council meeting chaired by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in August.
“We control the conflicts,” she said, recounting her message to Security Council nations, including Russia and China. “Just as we decide to wage war, we can decide to end war.”
But when leaders choose conflict over resolution, children end up suffering, Salem said.
“Those babies around the world are not to blame for the problems that we create as the adults in the room,” she said. “So my job is to make sure that we are supporting those young children, but also to demand better and more from those who are sitting, in that case, around the United Nations Security Council table to say, ‘This is on us.’ ”
Rhode Island PBS Weekly recently aired a segment about Edesia, noting that Edesia’s vice president of operations Andrew Kamara, and many other employees, are refugees.
Salem said Edesia has 26 flags at its plant representing the 26 nations where employees were born.
“To me, this is this is not a charity — this is good for business,” she said of the Edesia workforce. “Hiring from a community that is directly related to the work we do is smart business. No one can understand more the importance of our mission, the importance of the urgency — the need to deliver and find a way amongst all the roadblocks and the challenges that we come up upon every day to figure out how to get these foods out as quickly and safely as possible to the people who need it.”
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To get the latest episode each week, follow Rhode Island Report podcast on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms, or listen in the player above.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.
Feeding the world from Rhode Island
