Welcome to the personal travel journal of Carlos Chavez

Africa Adventure - June 2007

I had the honor of participating in a life changing trip a few years ago.

I traveled to Malawi, Africa in June 2007 one of a dozen people from the US America to qualify for this once in a lifetime adventure.  We were joined by friends from Canada, Japan, Spain, England, France, Denmark and Singapore. Some of the founders of NuSkin Enterprises and other corporate personnel also journeyed with us.

Nu Skin Enterprises has a charitable activity in which many of the worldwide distributors participate: Nourish the Children. NTC has worked with a man by the name of Napoleon Dzombe to build a food processing plant in Malawi where crops are purchased from local farmers and converted into a nutritionally balanced “VitaMeal." 

Our customers and we distributors purchase the bags of food and then donate them back to one of many causes, very often the Feed the Children campaign. We have also shipped VitaMeal bags to the Tsunami neighborhoods, to New Orleans Katrina victims and earthquake victims around the world. Since its launch in 2002, the Nourish the Children initiative has provided more than 180,000,000 servings of VitaMeal to malnourished children around the world. Our goal is to exceed 200 million meals in 2010.  Lee Iacocca serves as the chairperson of our NTC initiative.

A promotion in the first part of 2007 encouraged us to recruit others to donate on a regular basis. New contributors were worth more points than our personal contributions. A regular monthly contribution of $100 provides about 150 meals. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I won the trip from among the many thousands of NuSkin distributors. 

Some of the proceeds from VitaMeal purchases are donated to the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation to fund agricultural education at Mtalimanja Village in Malawi. Increased farm production could someday alleviate the need for food assistance in Malawi.  We traveled to Malawi for the dedication of the village campus.  The training regimen at Mtalimanja is much like a college program, two full years of on site training and education.  

Nu Skin also placed its first American advertisement in the May 2007 edition of Oprah Winfrey’s “O” magazine. Fittingly it was a corporate ad (not a product promotion) featuring our work with Nourish the Children.

I feel very fortunate to have been allowed to participate in such a worthwhile journey and with a company, which has such high ideals. 

Please contact me if you would be interested in learning more about Nourish The Children, making a donation to support our cause or more information about the wonderful products and opportunities of NuSkin and Pharmanex.

Carlos