Positive Deviance
At the invitation of the Vietnamese government, Jerry Sternin went
to Vietnam in the 1990s to work on eradicating malnutrition in the
country’s villages as a staff member of Save the Children. Building
on research by Marian Zeitlin of Tufts University, he held the kernel
of an idea and a question: Is it possible to find out why some children
might be healthy? This was a very odd question when everyone knew
their mission was to fight the problem of malnutrition against near-hopeless
odds, with its attendant and well-documented poverty, poor sanitation,
limited food distribution systems, lack of access to fresh water,
and political bureaucracy. Who in their right mind would ask if anyone
was well nourished?
Well, that is exactly what Sternin did. He stood
in front of a group of women from a local village who had been trained
to chart the growth of the children by age and weight. He asked them
if there were any children under three who were from poor families
but well nourished. He did not know what would happen next. The answer
was like the call and response of birds singing to each other. “Co
[pronounced “Gah,” meaning “Yes”], co, co.”
“You mean it’s possible
today in this village for a very poor family to have a well-nourished
child?” Sternin asked them.
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