About Us
The Mathile Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition, was founded in 2006 by philanthropic entrepreneur Clayton L. Mathile. Leveraging his business acumen, and being moved by his longtime association with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, an advocate for food security worldwide and the father of the Green Revolution, Mr. Mathile focused his attention on finding a robust approach that works to permanently eradicate world hunger and malnutrition. From this philosophy and passion, the Mathile Institute became a reality.
The Mathile Institute brings a lean focus, scientific mindset, and many years of evidence-based nutritional knowledge to bear on the issues of world hunger and malnutrition. We are committed to uncovering nutrition security gaps and challenges, and implementing innovative programs, services and products to diligently, yet rapidly, advance the nutritional health of the world’s children.
Our Commitment to Combating Malnutrition
Worldwide, more than 20 million low-birth weight babies are born in developing countries every year. Many die in infancy and over 9 million die before their fifth birthday. Among those that survive, an alarming percentage of these under the age of 5 are moderately to severely underweight, severely wasted and stunted. Malnutrition takes a significant toll on pregnant women and new mothers who breastfeed their babies as well.
It is because of these realities that The Mathile Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition was created. We are a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the health of the world’s children.
To achieve this vision, we are committed to our mission to create innovative, effective, and sustainable solutions to alleviate nutritional inadequacies in children.
Our approach solidly rests upon a foundation of core principles:
A strong adherence to an evidence-based approach
A drive to constantly discover and evolve new nutritional truths
A deep understanding and respect of the nutritional challenges and behaviors of those we serve
The establishment of effective collaborative relationships to accelerate and extend our reach
A Letter From Our President
I believe that every person, of every race, religion, or creed deserves access to food – high-quality, nutritious food. But today, this would be considered a belief that is nearly impossible to obtain. That is why malnutrition is recognized in the Millennium Development Goals as among the most serious challenges the global community must address, and is a goal to which The Mathile Institute is strongly committed.
Our mission, to create innovative, effective and sustainable solutions to alleviate nutritional inadequacies in children, instills a passion throughout our organization. Our focus is children under the age of five and women of child-bearing age.
The Institute’s core competencies in nutrition research, beneficiary understanding and product design and development enable us to work with collaborative organizations, and strive for evidenced-based solutions to malnutrition. The ultimate goal is a broad application of evidence-based solutions to extend the reach beyond regions of program implementation.
We know that collaborative working and learning relationships will create the most effective and successful programs. We are confident that our path will allow us to help reduce disease, combat poverty and eliminate cycles of malnutrition that would otherwise threaten future generations of children.
Thank you for your support.
Bless you,
Diane Hirakawa, Ph.D.
President
The Mathile Institute for the Advancement of Human Nutrition