We share a vision that everyone involved in child development, decision makers and communities will realize the benefits of good nutrition for children and will get onboard this project to make it a huge success in Fiji.

About Us

Our goal is to feed 1 nutritious meal a day to 35,000 children in Fiji. ONE NUTRITIOUS MEAL and ONE CHILD AT A TIME, with lots of people participating, we can reach our goal very quickly. If everyone contributed a little, very soon we will be a powerful force in saving children's lives and start to wipe out the problem of malnutrition in Fiji before it becomes a problem of epidemic proportions.

How This Initiative Started

Sailesh Singh and Irshad Ali met for the very first time in 2007 through a mutual friend. Sailesh had been involved with Nu Skin and their Nourish the Children initiative since 2006 while Irshad had been working with child development programmes in Fiji for the past 30 years. They both saw the benefits that the Nourish the Children initiative could bring to children in Fiji and approcahed Nu Skin South Pacific with their proposal.

Nu Skin South Pacific accepted the proposal and started implementing their Nourish the Children Initiative in Fiji. It took 3 years for the research into the situation of children in Fiji, getting approval from Nu Skin's Headoffice in the USA, testing and getting approval for VitaMeal from the Fiji Ministry of Health, doing a trial of VitaMeal with a select group of children and finding logistics and distributor partners in the South Pacific region.

All VitaMeal donations by Nu Skin distributors and customers from the South Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti and New Caledonia) are now being redirected to Fiji. This is approximately 1,500 bags every month, each bag containing 30 child-sized meals. Our goal is to raise this to around 35,000 bags of meals every month.

About Sailesh Singh

I was first introduced to the Nourish the Children initiative through a video titled 'A Warm Heart'. This video is the story of Napoleon Dzombe, a native Malawian, who has worked the majority of his life helping provide the basic necessities of life for people in Malawi, Africa. Aside from his efforts to help nourish thousands of people, one of Napoleon's greatest accomplishments was the opening of Blessings Hospital, a facility for people in a region of Malawi to receive medical attention.

The work of Napoleon Dzombe was inspiring. I admired his passion for humanitarian work and his principles upon which he became a force for change in his nation. I met Napoleon in 2007 and the two of us keep in regular contact. Napoleon is aware of this initiative in Fiji and is very supportive of it.

I started participating in the Nourish the Children initiative in 2006 and have been donating 5 bags of VitaMeal every month.

About Irshad Ali

Thirty years ago when I first embarked upon my teaching career, I began to investigate the difficulties children faced - particularly the poor, the weak and those with disabilities. I was struck by the reality of poverty, its impacts upon children, their learning difficulties and the multitude of factors that impede child development.

In 1994, I took up the challenge of developing a charitable organization in Fiji (Save the Children Fiji). Within my role as CEO, I was tasked with the challenge of investigating school dropout factors in Fiji. The research project culminated into a publication - 'Keeping Children in School'. To a great extent I tried to enlighten the particular struggle between educational needs of children and institutional policies, and other factors such as violence that lead to increasing dropout rates. I began to understand the situation and to confront the reality of poverty in Fiji and designed a number of development-focused programs - Early Childhood Education, Research and Advocacy, School Development and Relief during emergencies.

The communities I have worked with over the years and numerous research projects I have coordinated aroused my deepest feelings about influences that impact childrens' lives and what children are all about. In addition, I had the privilege to work with Government and international institutions, Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and numerous international agencies.

The paradox of child-poverty is that we all know about it existentially, yet we know little of the common elements that create disparity, neglect and suffering. It is only a matter of time that neglect of children will find us in disarray. Hopefully, humanity will learn to find the common threads that could build children into prosperous individuals. Only I know it's not just my obsession, it's not personal; it's all about 'children'.

I first learnt of the Nourish the Children initiative from Sailesh and subsequently saw the video on Napoleon and read his autobiography. After many years of experience in humanitarian work in Fiji, particularly around children, I have found a niche for change - the Nourish the Children initiative.