Research Trip: Nigerian Foods & Hunger

I'm embarking on the social entrepreneurship journey! The first project I'm working on is about Nigerian foods. There are so many interesting traditional food items and meals that get almost no attention outside of Africa. This is a huge loss to the rest of the world because many of them are delicious and packed with nutrients.

For example, have you ever heard of moringa leaves (known as 'zogale' in Hausa)? They only grow in certain special regions of the world, Nigeria being one of them! This skinny tree is jammed-packed with lots of extraordinary nutrients making this commoner's food now a center of attention for Western physicians such as Dr. Oz (click here to see).

I would like to spend 2 months (March and April 2014) researching traditional Northern Nigerian foods: their histories, their health benefits, and the ways they're used in delicious recipes.

The second part of my research will include conducting interviews with child beggars, impoverished community members, and people involved in addressing poverty in Kano. I seek to better understand the histories, aspirations, and challenges of these marginalized communities. I will then use my findings to propose different models that can be used to get more of Nigeria's nutritional food items into the hands of some of the country's poorest people. From there, I'll begin designing my own social entrepreneurship venture to tackle some of these issues.

I'll share my findings on a multimedia blog full of short videos, photos, and writings. You'll get to virtually join me on my Nigerian journey from farmers to food-lovers, cooks to child beggars!

Please help make this research trip possible. Any amount you can donate will be greatly appreciated. Please help spread the word!

Thank you!

P.S. To see my last award-winning documentary about modernization in Kano, please click: A Gateway into Kano.