Will Coca Cola take up this challenge?

CokeDelivery

First read about this on Paul’s website which led me to Simon Berry’s website and the genesis of a brilliant idea.

Simon first came up with it 20 years ago but it lay dormant for some time. He was driving through the bush in NE Zambia. In this area, 1 in 5 children died before the age of 5 from dehydration.

Roll forward to the beginning of May when he is reading a comment by Coca Cola on a live blog event organised by 10 Downing Street. He contributed these words:

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?

Coincidentally, a short time after this blog event, Simon was listening to the radio. Annie Lennox was on Desert Island Discs and she said :

we live in a time when we can distribute Coca Cola to all corners of the World but children still die, usually of dehydration

It’s almost as if the planets are aligning to make this idea happen.

You can read the various posts on Simon’s blog directly to give you the full detail. My reason for writing about this is I just joined Facebook specifically to show support for this idea. I’ve never had a reason to until now.

If you have an account on Facebook, could I ask that you do the same?

Join the Facebook campaign here

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13 comments

  1. Done! Fair play to you for highlighting this – wouldn’t have known otherwise.

    *off to look at yer pictures :P *

  2. Cheers Darragh. No photos or anyhing on it as I just signed up last night for this + I’ll have to get the hang of it and see what it’s all about!

  3. What a great idea. Back in 1994 I spent some time in a bush village in Zimbabwe. Occasionally the bore hole would stop producing water (it was a 3km walk as well), so rarely we were left without water, and on one rare occasion we drank the local beer hall dry, but the Coke truck never failed to deliver. They also ran promotions – offering free Coke glasses for bottle tops – so local kids spent hours scouring the ground for tops…What an infrastructure.

  4. Good story Dec – the infrastructure is something else alright

  5. Pingback: Coke Distribution Channels, Simon Berry, Rehydration Salts.

  6. Pingback: Galway Greens » Coke being encouraged to use distribution channels for aid.

  7. Sorry if you’ve seen this already. But some excellent news from Simon Berry.

    Coca-Cola’s Global Director Stakeholder Relations has suggested a “chat” with Simon Berry regarding this idea. This is a foot in the door that could lead somewhere very interesting.

    Also, 370+ Facebook members in a little under a week for such a cause is pretty good going and clearly the network has some influential members.

    http://tinyurl.com/567qa2

  8. Thanks Paul. I hadn’t actually read the update on Simon’s blog until I saw your comment. The feed didn’t update in the feed reader I use, so I might not have noticed it otherwise!

  9. What a great post, graphic and set of comments. Would it be OK if I put the graphic in the ‘Photos’ section of the Facebook group?

    Thanks for your support . . . we are making progress here.

    Simon

  11. Pingback: le craic » Coca Cola update

  12. Pingback: Simon's Blog (the official one) ยป The Coca Cola Rehydration Campaign.

  13. Pingback: le craic » Coca Cola update #2

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