This is a guest post from Lisa Curtis, Founder & CEO of Kuli Kuli
A Saint Patrick’s Day riddle for you: What do trees, money, and agriculture start-ups have in common? They’re all green! And in my case, they enable my business to do more to improve nutrition and livelihoods in West Africa than many similarly sized nonprofits with the same mission.
I came up with the idea for my company, Kuli Kuli, while serving in the Peace Corps. I lived in a small, rural village in Niger with no electricity, running water or vegetables. I could live without light switches and flushing toilets but quickly found myself growing weak on a diet of beans, rice and millet. A few of my nurse friends from my village’s health center advised me to start eating leaves from a local tree called Moringa oleifera.
I mixed the moringa leaves with peanut balls, known as kuli-kuli in the local language, and came up with a snack that I began eating everyday. As my strength returned, I researched moringa and realized I had…