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In rural Latin America, food is traditionally cooked on a wood fire. It’s one of the many causes of deforestation. Unfortunately, it’s the source of a much more serious issue that many families are completely unaware of: smoke is seriously damaging to health. In particular, it stops babies’ brains from developing properly.
If you put your money in a safe at the bank, you’ll accumulate money; If you build a house, employ masons, and pay taxes, you’ll create wealth. Making this distinction between “Making money and creating wealth” completely shook up the way I built my business model.
Whether it’s in Belorussia or Latin America, the images of desperation are the same. Last January, more than 9000 migrants fled to the United States to escape conditions of poverty in Honduras. They dreamt of a better future, or simply any future at all. Some passed over successfully, bringing with them what they could: babies, strollers, small backpacks pared down to the essentials – the sum of a lifetime.
Embroidered fabrics, precious belts, hand-woven skirts. The traditional clothing of Guatemala is steeped in an- cestral know-how. One day, when I was walking through the market with one of my French friends, I was given a real class in Guatemalan fabric: “This one comes from Chajul, this blouse is a huipil from Santa Catarina Palo- po…” She was passionate about Guatemala and knew ev- erything about where they came from! I had never delved into this extraordinarily rich subject. Did you know that in Guatemala, many people dress in “pacas,” or used cloth- ing imported primarily from the United States? Those polos and T-shirts bear Western brands that don’t have much meaning here. How sad to see a country forget its own culture!
Today, I’m not a doctor, but I still hear my father’s words. In a way, I’ve internalized them so deeply that they’ve become the driving force behind Nelixia.
“Whatever you work on, make sure it brings something good to others,” my father would always tell me when I was young. As a surgeon, he regularly left on missions in the far-off regions of Guatemala to set up mobile hospitals there and provide health care for local communities. I often went with him. I was exposed the reality of my country, poverty, lack of education, and very tough living conditions at a very young age.
Today, I’m not a doctor, but I still hear my father’s words. In a way, I’ve internalized them so deeply that they’ve become the driving force behind Nelixia.
The concept of “sustainable forest management” was defined at the Rio Summit of 1992 and is a worldwide ambition. It involves managing forests sustainably to preserve their biodiversity, their vitality, and their ability to regenerate. What does this mean in reality?
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