Nu3 Foundation

Over half of households in Colombia’s Atlantic department live in conditions of food insecurity (hunger, fear of starvation, or extremely poor nutrition), compared to 43% nationally, with a particularly dangerous impact on pregnant women, approximately half of whom are malnourished. Young women also face higher rates of unemployment than their male counterparts: nearly 30% of young women age 14-26 are unemployed, versus 21% of men in the same age range.

Nu3 was founded in 2005 to address the nutritional and development needs of children and families living in poverty in Barranquilla (the capital of the Atlantic department), using the issue of food security as an entry point to address related needs in the areas of health, education, livelihoods, and psychosocial support. Active in 19 municipalities in the Atlantic and Magdalena departments, Nu3’s programs currently serve 21,000 children and parents annually.

EMpower’s second grant to Nu3 will continue to support 45 adolescent girls and young mothers who participated in Nu3’s first entrepreneurship program and take them to the next level. This grant will respond to girls’ need for more specific knowledge to complement and reinforce topics learned (i.e. marketing and sales, accounting, finance), ensure that business plans are fully developed and of higher quality, provide the top 10 businesses with seed funding while facilitating the presentation of the remaining 35 business plans to potential funders, and ultimately ensure that participants have all the tools needed to implement their ideas.

Colombia
Website: http://www.nutrirbarranquilla.org/
Year Established: 2005