"Grad student Chris Charles helped in the development of this iron fish that poor village women in Cambodia put in their cooking pots, allowing iron to leach into the food and therefore raising the levels of iron in their bodies. They tried several designs but finally chose a lucky fish. Charles holds one of the lucky fish on the Guelph University Campus."
Lucky fish saves lives
The people they worked with — “the poorest of the poor” — can’t afford red meat or pricey iron pills, and the women won’t switch to iron cooking pots because they find them heavy and costly. Yet a small chunk of iron could release life-saving iron into the water and food. But what shape would the women be willing to place in their cooking pots?
“We knew some random piece of ugly metal wouldn’t work . . . so we had to come up with an attractive idea,” he said. “It became a challenge in social marketing.”
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