A New Social Venture Takes the Lead from TOMS Shoes to Fight Child Hunger

A New Social Venture Takes the Lead from TOMS Shoes to Fight Child Hunger Two Degrees addresses malnutrition in developing countries with a get-one, give-one sales approach.

By Gwen Moran • May 24, 2011

Lauren Walters still can't believe what he witnessed in the pediatric ward of a village hospital in Rwanda. As an advisor with the Boston-based nonprofit Partners in Health, he had visited impoverished and disaster-ravaged areas around the world. But in that pediatric ward he got his first up-close look at the harsh effects of malnutrition on children--many also suffering from tuberculosis, HIV or malaria.

By the Numbers

"We started this to give people very simple opportunities to make a difference," Hauser says. "To see that actually happening is really satisfying."

925 Million: Undernourished people worldwide in 2010 (nearly 16 percent of the population of developing countries).

10.9 Million: Annual number of child deaths. Poor nutrition contributes to approximately half of that total.

160 Number of days each year that undernourished kids may suffer from illness.

"I had never seen somebody who was severely malnourished," Walters says. "You think, "How could this happen?'" What shocked Walters most of all was that the protocol for treating malnutrition is a simple, 500-calorie nutrition pack. So simple, yet often unavailable. The experience stayed with him.

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A New Social Venture Takes the Lead from TOMS Shoes to Fight Child Hunger Two Degrees addresses malnutrition in developing countries with a get-one, give-one sales approach.