The ColaLife Virtual Advisory Board

There has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes to put together a ‘virtual advisory board’ of well known names to add further credibility to ColaLife and help us move from an incredibly successful campaign to an organisation that can help put together the unlikely alliances that are going to be required for us to achieve our vision. Getting the first person to commit was always going to be the big challenge. So our sincere thanks go to Don Nutbeam who has put himself forward as our first ‘virtual advisory board’ member.

Don Nutbeam
Professor of Public Health
University of Southampton

Professor Nutbeam said:

“ColaLife offers a creative solution to the distribution problems that prevent the delivery of proven solutions to enduring health problems among some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. For Coca-Cola it represents an outstanding example of corporate social responsibility.”

Professor Nutbeam has been a long term supporter of ColaLife. You will see from this video that he shares the ColaLife philosophy and our attitude to big business. When this was filmed (June 2009), Don was Honourary Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney. He talks about ColaLife in the context of ‘making the most of what is already there’ to improve public health, or ‘going with the grain’. He says:

“I’ve been working . . . with a campaign to try to persuade Coca-Cola who have frankly the best distribution network in Africa to use their distribution network to deliver essential medicines. They can deliver Coca-Cola to pretty much any corner of Africa and we in public health seem to be miserable at achieving the same goal so why not try to work with the grain.”

Brilliant.

Professor Nutbeam’s summary boigraphy reads like this:

DON NUTBEAM PhD FFPH

Don Nutbeam is currently Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton and a Professor of Public Health. His career has spanned positions in universities, government, health services and an independent research institute. From 2003-9 he was in senior academic roles in the University of Sydney, and prior to this he was Head of Public Health in the UK Department of Health. His research interests include public health intervention research in schools and communities as well as studies of health literacy, and adolescent health behaviour. He has published widely on these topics. He has substantial international experience in both developing and developed countries, working as an advisor and consultant for the World Health Organisation over a 20 year period, and as consultant and team leader in projects for the World Bank.

Onwards and upwards.