ColaLife Campaign on paper for the first time

August 31, 2008 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment 

El Mercurio Article - Page Image

The article, as it appeared in El Mercurio, can be viewed here.

It’s amazing to reflect on the fact that, as far as I know, this campaign has yet to be written about on paper. That is until today when an article by Facebook Group member, Matías Infante, appeared in El Mercurio, a leading national daily newspaper in Chile. For spanish readers the full article is here. Below is a rough translation.

ColaLife: the social network that was born in Facebook and sensitized Coca-Cola

“One of the pleasures in life is knowing you can take a Coca-Cola even if you’re in the middle of the bush,” says Simon Berry from London. The Englishman knows what he is talking about: in 1988 his government was working for a humanitarian aid programme in northern Zambia, on the African continent. In the area, one in five children dies before reaching 5 years. The reason? Dehydration from diarrhea, from the intake of untreated water.

In contrast, in Zambia you can drink Coca-Cola when and where you want. He realized that no matter what part of the world were, the distribution network reached everywhere, “distribution channels are completely amazing … even in the poorest countries”.

This is whwere an idea occurred to prevent needless deaths emerged: “Coca-Cola could use this tremendous distribution power to bring the people of those countries rehydration salts and materials to teach them about hygiene and water treatment.” The initiative named as the ColaLife started.

That was 20 years ago. He began sending letters to the authorities already known, but nothing major happened. 7,305 days passed since then, until Berry created a group on Facebook. And the viral effect did the rest. Today ColaLife is a social network that puts pressure on the transnational. They intend that, for every 10 crates of Coca-Cola, one of the receptacles are distributed medicines and water filters individual. Everything in order to reduce the mortality of children in the developing countries.

The Facebook group, called “Let’s talk to Coca-Cola about saving the World’s Children” is exploding like a gas drink. And Coca-Cola heard: Berry has met with leading executives in the company and the idea is ColaLife reality later this year in Tanzania. All this in just over three months of life on the Internet; viralización an example of power and online.

He realized medicines did not arrive everywhere, but Coca-Cola did. And he linked the two and use that distribution power.

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ColaLife claims its own part of the World Wide Web

August 28, 2008 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment 

Google search for ColaLife
Up until the middle of last week I was trying my best to comment with thanks on each blog item written by others all over the web about the ColaLife campaign -  but alas I’ve been overwhelmed. This is good news! Don’t stop - but this post is by way of a ‘global thank-you’ to all those who have promoted ColaLife through their websites and blogs. A Google search on ‘colalife’ now returns seven solid pages that all relate to the campaign. The next 18 pages are pretty unadulterated too. Incredible. Many thanks.

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Progress Report - 27/8/08

August 27, 2008 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment 

crowd of children

This photo was taken by Teseum - the original is here

I thought an update on the progress of the Coca Cola campaign so far would be helpful.

The first 7,305 days - no progress!
May 1988 - May 2008

  • May 1988 Had the idea while working on the British Aid Programme in NE Zambia that Coca-Cola’s distribution muscle could be used to distribute oral rehydration salts in developing countries
  • I tried to promote the idea but made no progress at all!

The last 120 days - real progress!
May 2008 onwards

Next moves

  • Planning for the next Business Call To Action meeting at the UN in New York on 25 September
  • Tracking the Coca-Cola research into their distribution network in east Africa
  • Encouraging the prospect of trials of the concept in east Africa before the end of 2008
  • Seeking engagement from a multi-national NGO
  • Encouraing ideas and contributions from members of the various groups (eg design of inserts for crates; educational and awareness raising materials; local logistics; grass-roots engagement etc etc)
  • On-going PR campaign to ensure support groups continue to grow
  • Event?

5,500 children die every day in Africa before the age of 5. This initiative could save thousands and thousands of children’s lives through positive engagement between the private and NGO sector.

Filed under: Coca Cola Campaign, Newsletters
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Breakfast with James Alexander

August 20, 2008 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment 

Change The World For Fiver
I set off for London at the crack of dawn this morning to have a breakfast meeting with my old friend James Alexander. We were brought together again by one of Kate’s press releases. James has been holding the interim CEO post at We Are What We Do. I first came across We Are What We Do when I met Eugenie Harvey when she was promoting her amazing book ‘Change the World for a Fiver‘. If you haven’t got this book - buy it - it’s an inspiration. Here’s an interview with Eugenie from the delicious ambitious site:
Eugenie Harvey Video Still
Anyway, We Are What We Do are about getting lots of people to do small things to bring about big change. That’s what this campaign feels like. Lot’s of people have taken a moment to show their support by joining the ColaLife Facebook Group and we are making great progress as a result. However, We Are What We Do are experts getting people to do another small thing, and then another small thing . . . . which woud be good expertise to have access to. We will be looking at how we can work together on the ColaLife Campaign.

Filed under: Coca Cola Campaign, Partners, Videos
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Answering some of the questions

August 19, 2008 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment 

Dehydrated Child

Various questions came out of the first get-together last week of the ColaLife Campaign. I thought it would be useful to try to expand on these and seek help/suggestions from readers of this blog, so here goes. Read more

Filed under: Coca Cola Campaign, Events, Facebook, LifeStraw, NGOs
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Is the LifeStraw part of the answer?

August 18, 2008 by Simon Berry · 3 Comments 


At the risk of complicating a very simple idea . . . let me introduce you to the ‘LifeStraw’ in case you haven’t yet seen one. Tobias Ernberg is a member of the Facebook Group and noted a previous post where I mentioned this personal water filter. This week he sent me a sample. Toby works for Vestergaard Frandsen who manufacture the award-winning device.

The neat thing about the ‘LifeStraw’, as far as this campaign is concerned,  is that it is about prevention rather than cure. However, I get the impression that they are mostly distributed during disasters. Typical! ColaLife is about the day-to-day. I’ve asked Toby for details of the cost of ‘LifeStraws’. Please comment with any questions.

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First ColaLife Meet-up

August 17, 2008 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment 

Colalife cooks
The first ever face-to-face meeting of ColaLife took place on 14/8/08 in Nunhead, London. I kick myself for forgetting to take any pictures during the event so you’ll have to make do with this one. This is Jane, Emma and Andrew (in the background) - the cooks - and was taken as people were arriving. The conversation was then so continuous and interesting that the camera was forgotten about.

It was more ‘getting to know each other’ than ‘action-plan-focussed meeting’; more questions than answers. It was great for me to meet my co-admin on the Facebook Group, Kate Andrews, for the first time. Kate has had a huge impact with her writing and contacts which has reached people outside of Facebook.

It was also great to meet Ian Crawford who has also worked hard to promote the campaign. Ian provided a useful summary of those questions:

  • Can we get the RSA and more fellows involved?
  • Would it be beneficial to create a competition brief (e.g. RSA Design Directions / Design21 / Core 77)?
  • How can we use the Coke packaging itself, could it be altered to create a lifestraw for example?
  • How can we use the “negative” space that will be left in the crates?
  • What problem do we want to solve?
  • Where would the project be taking place?
  • What would we be sending - rehydration salts?
  • What doesn’t manage to get distributed successfully at the moment?
  • Should we look into hosting an event?
  • How can we get demographic data from the Facebook group and do we need to?
  • Should we work together with an NGO? Who?

Web 2.0’s Social Reporter, David Wilcox was also there. I’ve known David for more than a decade and we have done some really interesting projects together over the years, including this one. All the video associated with the ColaLife campaign, to date, has been done by David.

Dave Briggs had to attend to last minute family matters and so couldn’t be with us. Dave has written about the campaign on davepress.net and built this website for us.

We did decide that we now needed a workplan. Watch this space . . .

Filed under: Coca Cola Campaign, Events
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How can we make the most of the Business Call To Action?

August 10, 2008 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment 

Business Call To Action LogoIt was the last Business Call To Action event in London hosted by Gordon Brown on 6 May 2008 that re-ignited this idea and started the ColaLife Campaign. I wrote about this at the time. The 6 May event was part of the build-up to the main UN-level event in New York on 25 September 2008. There is a useful summary of this UN initiative on the DfID website.

I understand that the Coca-Cola Chairman will be making some sort of statement at the event and that the research we’ve been reporting into Coca-Cola’s distribution network is likely to feature in that statement. However, I am pretty sure that there are no plans to mention ColaLife at this stage.

So, what should we be trying to achieve and how should we go about it? Should we try and ensure that reference is made to our campaign?

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Local matters - latest from Tanzanzia

August 6, 2008 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment 


Image by Gabi~

Adrian writes:

This week has been filled with interesting discussions with more distributors and their employees as we investigate how Coca-Cola can partner better with this group of people in addressing key issues. Having spent some time looking at how things work in Ethiopia, I’m keen to see where there are differences and similarities in the Tanzanian models.

One thing we’ve learnt very quickly is how important ‘local’ is. Each country has its unique elements and this changes slightly the way that products are distributed and the way that their businesses are run. What immediately strikes you are the obvious cultural and political differences between Ethiopia and Tanzania. But many social concerns among the people we meet are very similar - although with varying degrees of severity. The problems people talk about are unemployment, safe drinking water, poor sanitation and education - as well as general poverty-related issues. Once we have completed our data gathering we’ll  be doing our utmost to find the right match between a local priority need and a possible way to harness Coca-Cola’s distribution partners for maximum impact, to try to address that particular challenge.  The local bottling partner, Coca-Cola Sabco, has real clout; it operates in seven Southern and East African countries - as well as five Asian countries - and employs more than 9500 people in 25 bottling plants. We’re really encouraged that they have been very supportive of the process so far. This is vital as they have the key relationship with the distributors and the local presence to make things happen. Local matters: time spent building relationships and understanding at this stage is going to be the best investment we can make in the change process.

Filed under: Coca Cola Campaign, Coca-Cola Research, Ethiopia, Tanzania
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Latest from Tanzania - the rural/urban divide

August 4, 2008 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment 

Dar es Salaam construction
This photo is by ke1jzer

Adrian writes from Dar es Salaam

‘Dar’ is a dynamic city and a window on how Tanzania is developing – at least in the capital. Every time I visit I’m struck by new buildings suddenly appearing like mushrooms, new roads and new foreign investment: a little disorienting for the infrequent visitor, but encouraging evidence of growth and development! The story in rural areas – the vast extent of this country - is very different, at least if you just go on what you can see around you. But dig a little deeper and you find inspiring examples of enterprise, as the ripples of this development and the impact of the jobs it brings flow out into rural areas.

And it’s not outside intervention causing these ripples, but the inherent underlying community-focussed culture of this beautiful country that we have to thank. People in the city and those with jobs take their responsibility to look after their ‘extended family’ very seriously - often at great personal sacrifice. Nearly everyone I meet will be sending part of their income to family living in poorer rural areas. The power of education is really appreciated as an investment in the next generation, and we come across many people who eek out their modest income to pay for their sibling’s children to go to school.

Seeing this in action is quite humbling and makes me realise how far the ‘Me Me’ culture we see in many so-called ‘developed’ countries has taken us away from a real connection with our own communities and families. It’s this focus on community that we hope to tap into, as we work with people on the ground, to harvest some of their great creativity, drive and enthusiasm – and their invaluable insights into what they need. Not on the large scale development of the smart new office blocks in ‘Dar’, but small ideas that might just make a big difference to everyday lives.

Filed under: Coca Cola Campaign, Coca-Cola Research, Tanzania
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