Nutri-Snacks

Tasty and healthy snacks that help treat vitamin and mineral deficiencies for kids suffering from malnutrition, especially anemia, also helping children to develop cognitively and give them a better education.

Our idea is to develop some snacks for kids based on quinoa, vanilla and carrot cookies (which will have the function of providing vitamins, proteins and minerals; regulate cholesterol; provide calcium and help in problems with gastritis and constipation), filled with natural cocoa and peanut creme (for flavor, protein levels, collagen and fiber). The essential element will be bovine hemoglobin which will be incorporated in the cookie and will provide the body with high levels of iron (for every 100 grams, there are 29.5 milligrams of iron).

In addition, we are going to use Metalized Film Recycling technology and also food technology which uses more sustainable processes. Likewise, the packaging will have a learning section categorized by the color of our wrapper: green color will expose a dynamic game related to science; the red one, maths; etc. On the other hand, for anyone who wants more educational information, the packaging will offer a digital QR code that can be scanned and will take them to our website.  All this with the aim that our product improves the cognitive development of the kids and it will help value their nutritional level.

The great level of malnutrition present in our native country Peru, especially demonstrated in children and adolescents in rural areas, it’s so advanced that it influenced us to develop this concept. Moreover, we plan to implement an area of education in packaging as it is aimed at this group of young people to improve their access and development in the educational field at the same time. In addition, with the wrapping process we are also dedicated to partially solve the contamination by aluminized plastics which affects all the world.

Our idea is aimed at the general population; however, we want to focus on rural communities in Peru, especially children and adolescents (primary and secondary students) who do not fully develop their cognitive abilities due to their poor diet.  By developing our concept, we will be able to provide the minors of these communities with nutritious snacks that will improve their health (especially their lack of iron) and in level up their learning and care. Furthermore, our objective is mainly directed to the Huancavelica Region in which its average chronic childhood malnutrition is 33% while in Metropolitan Lima it is 5% (according to an article by UNICEF published on October 15, 2019).

In order to understand the needs of the population we want to reach, we have investigated about the problem in question. And quite apart from doing this, we live in a country in which malnutrition and anemia are a common problem, and we have been able to see it in different media such as the news, social networks, and even walking through the poorest districts. On the other hand, we have participated in volunteers aimed at helping children with anemia where we put ourselves in their shoes and help them by giving our best effort and abilities to try to eradicate the problem in question.

We choose that our idea is only a concept because, although we investigate and understand the subject, we do not have the support or the necessary resources to develop this project in an effective and sustainable way, since people of our age and residents in Peru do not count with so many opportunities.

In addition to the technology and engineering of food production with which we would produce our Nutri-Snacks (the entire process of mixing, baking, assembly, packaging and quality control); we also present gastronomic technologies and nutritional sciences since these snacks are aimed at improving the functioning of the body. On the other hand, as we mentioned earlier, we are going to use two types of fundamental technologies for the development of our solution. First, the Metalized Film Recycling technology which recycles used plastics with SINOBALER, a machine that provides a wide range that can be used for baling different types of metalized film, from vertical baler to horizontal baler, from manual baler to automatic baler. Choosing which type of baler depends on your volume of waste metalized film. And in an other hand, the second technology that it's crucial for us is the Food technology, which is one that allows us to produce food that is better adapted to consumer demands in a safe way, with more sustainable and efficient production processe.

Because we have decided to develop only a concept, we have not yet been able to make this Nutri-Snacks for children suffering from malnutrition and anemia. However, despite this, as the project has progressed we have realized that we plan to help a large part of kids in the first place or if we can, most of the children who are part of our key population that is the department of Huancavelica, which has the highest rates of childhood anemia throughout Peru.

Our impact goals for next year are the following: first, and the most important for us, is to develop the snacks that we are proposing, and that they reach our desired objective. For this, we plan to be done progressively, thus reaching in the first place the children with the highest rates of malnutrition and vulnerability in the department of Huancavelica. In addition, another of our goals for next year is not only to impact the lives of these children, but also to impact the lives of people who, although if they do not suffer from this, they wish to participate in a project like ours. In this way, forming a volunteer service for people of our age or older who wish to impact either directly or indirectly on the lives of these children, and thus making a change in the world.

Our progress over the months will be measured through weekly and finally monthly goals. For this, we will establish statistical tables with our daily progress, and with these we will be able to realize if we have reached our goals for the week (we will verify in which we are having more problems and with what we are progressing more quickly) and, later, each month. Just as our solution is a concept, when we fully realize our Nutri-Snacks, we plan to test it in a specific group of children (approximately 100) with anemia and malnutrition to verify its effectiveness. This will take place in a small town called Tambo Grande de Piura, Peru (in the first instance) and then move it to our objective population Huancavelica. These low-income children will be provided with our snacks high in iron and other nutrients and will undergo a test called Hemoglobin Dosage once every week and a half for 3 months.

The barriers that exist for us to reach our goals this year, and next year, are mainly financial barriers, which lead to technical barriers. This is because as we are girls who are still in school, we do not have enough money to be able to invest in our solution, thus, we still cannot produce the product, and therefore deliver it to our target population. In addition, financial barriers hinder our technological development since the technology that we have proposed for the development of Nutri-Snacks also requires that financial part.

We feel well positioned to carry out this project because in addition to being very interested in the subject and wanting with all our souls to help those most in need, especially the most unfortunate children; we have the capacities and the knowledge because day by day we see the consequences of malnutrition and the anemia crisis in our country, which prompts us to want to resolve this issue. As well, we have participated in different volunteer activities aimed at orphaned children, sick-hospitalized children and the most recent children with anemia who inform us, teach us and raise awareness of this problem in Peru. Regarding the environmental issue, we have also participated in self-employment volunteers in which we went to clean beaches and collect bottle caps that we later donated to Peruvian public associations to help sick and disabled children. Otherwise, being young women (15 and 16 years old) we know children's tastes better, which is why we propose our Nutri-Snacks as a filled cookie, which is much more pleasant for children, we feel that by being closer to their age, we can better connect with our target population and achieve our goals.

At the moment we are not working with any organizations because we have just started this project and also because we haven’t yet developed the Nutri-Snacks completely. However, in the future we plan to work with organizations who are interested and committed to helping us with this project.

We believe that we qualify for this award since we are two young women interested in change and, we believe that with small steps like this, big projects are started. In addition, we believe that we are qualified for this award because, although our solution is only a concept, it is a project that would not only benefit us, but would benefit both the environment and millions of children suffering from diseases such as anemia and malnutrition, and that thanks to the large inequality gaps in our country, they have not been able to fully develop in the nutritional and educational fiel. And it is for this very reason that we think we are qualified for this award, because with this, we could make the lives of many children better. Finally, our team would use this award to be able to produce the Nutri-Snacks and everything we propose with them, and make these snacks reach more children throughout Peru, and finally from other parts of the world.