About

ColaLife is an initiative to get Coca-Cola to open up its distribution channels in developing countries to save lives, especially children’s lives, by carrying much needed ’social products’ such as oral rehydration salts and high-dose vitamin A tablets. For the latest on the campaign, please visit the blog. ColaLife is an independent and purely voluntary movement backed by thousands of supporters on its Facebook Page and Facebook Group.

It was launched by Simon Berry, who had an idea while working on the British Aid programme in 1988:

What about Coca Cola using their distribution channels (which are amazing in developing countries) to distribute rehydration salts? Maybe by dedicating one compartment in every 10 crates as ‘the life saving’ compartment?

Having made no progress with the idea for 20 years, Simon decided to try once more but this time using the convening power of the internet. Since floating the idea on his blog in May 2008, he has managed to create a huge community around the campaign, through a Facebook and appearances on Radio 4’s iPM programme. He is now in discussions with Coca-Cola. He has also brokered a partnership between the international NGO, AED and Coca-Cola to trial the ideas behind ColaLife.

The latest progress reports are here.

This 30 second video was produced on 19 October 2008 to support our submission to Google’s Project 10^100 initiative:

Since May 2008 the original idea has been developed further and is now focussed on the ‘aidpod’ concept - a wedge-shaped pod that fits in the unused space between the necks of the bottles in a Coca-Cola crate. Here is a video describing Mark III of the aidpod design.

At the heart of ColaLife is the principle of local determination. ColaLife must be implemented in a way with empowers and strengthens the local public health infrastructure.
ColaLife and local determination
This is explained in more detail here. Our key principles are here.

On 25/4/08 Coca-Cola committed to ‘trial the ideas behind Colalife’ on the BBC’s iPM Programme. You can listen to the full interview here. To hear an extract from the interview click on the play button below.

Here is a recent interview (October 2009) with Simon Berry where he commits to giving up his day time job in June 2010 to dedicate himself full time to ColaLife.

The campaign has made so much progress that we are now moving into implementation mode. We have described our initial priorities and how we would achieve these in our first development plan published in December 2009:

Development Plan cover page

But Simon can’t do all this alone. An email group has been formed for those that want to be more involved, and this site created to help spread the message even further. If you have anything to offer the campaign, please do get involved.

>> Our full aims and objectives

Last updated: 1/1/10