Protecting breastfeeding - Protecting babies fed on formula

International Nestlé-Free Week is a time for people who boycott Nestlé over the way it pushes baby milk to do more to promote the boycott - and for those who don't boycott to give it a go. 

If Nestlé executives do not accept Baby Milk Action's four-point plan for saving infant lives and ultimately ending the boycott, then we will be promoting International Nestlé-Free Week again in 2012. See below for information on the 2011 event.

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The main target of the boycott is Nescafé coffee. If you only boycott Nescafé, try giving all Nestlé products a miss for this week. If you don't boycott because you don't want to miss out on a Nestlé brand, try it for this week. In some countries 31 October is marked as Halloween when sweets/candies are given to children - this provides a great opportunity to explain why you won't be buying Nestlé confectionery.

Nestlé-Free Candy Wrappers and other resources for Halloween and the week

Campaigners in the United States launched Nestlé-Free Candy Wrappers for the 2010 week. To download the file to print on labels to put on non-Nestlé confectionery - click here. 

Download and print this Nestlé-Free Zone poster to display in your window - click here for the pdf file.

You can also use hand out our credit-card sized cards which lists the main brands and explains the basics of the campaign. Click here.

Our leaflet explaining why to boycott Nestlé Fairtrade KitKat contains a useful summary of the baby milk and child slavery/labour issues - click here.

Smart phone Nestlé boycott list launched

You can find the main UK Nestlé brands on our new isite, by accessing this link with your smart phone:

http://www.babymilkaction.org/isite/

Campaigners in other countries have put up lists more specifically for their countries, such as Canada, New Zealand and the United States (Boo Nestlé and Kelly Naturally).

Be Nestlé-Free and spread the word

Click here to invite your friends to the event on Facebook.

You will find sources of information, Nestlé-Free logos for blogs and lots more in our year-round Nestlé-Free Zone. - because the boycott is not just for one week, it's until Nestlé accepts and delivers on our four-point plan for saving infant lives.

The reason for having a special week is to make it easier for you to tell people why you are boycotting:

Nestlé is the worst of the baby food companies, pushing baby milk around the world using strategies that are prohibited by international marketing standards. It also refuses to warn of risks from formula and how to reduce them. Nestlé knows that babies fed on formula are more likely to become sick than breastfed babies and, in conditions of poverty, more likely to die. It puts its own profits before health. The boycott gives it a financial reason to think again and helps force changes.

According to UNICEF: "Improved breastfeeding practices and reduction of artificial feeding could save an estimated 1.5 million children a year."

Tell Nestlé you are boycotting - it makes a difference

Don't forget to tell Nestlé you are boycotting - click here for our 'Email Nestlé' page. If you have already emailed Nestlé, please do so again as we are highlighting violations that have just been reported to us at the moment.

Emailing Nestlé works - it discontinued a leaflet claiming its formula is "The new 'Gold Standard' in infant Nutrition" that was featured in our campaign after thousands of people emailed it.

On the other hand, Nestlé has said it will stop only 4 of the 130 violations it counted in its profile in the latest global monitoring report from the International Baby Food Action Network. We need to keep up the pressure to persuade it to stop the other 97%.

Nestlé also refuses to warn that powdered formula is not sterile and the simple steps to reduce the risks of possible contamination with harmful bacteria, such as Enterobacter Sakazakii and Salmonella. Instead, it promotes its formula with health and nutrition claims, such as colourful logos saying its formula 'protects'.

Nestlé, Good Grief!

Nestlé's slogan is 'Good Food, Good Life'. Boycotters say 'Nestlé, Good Grief!' (you can add the Nestlé, Good Grief! widget to your boycott pages and download the jingle as a ringtone or text alert for the week and beyond).

Click on the widget to play it again.

Photo competition - Protect our Babies

We are looking for pictures of mothers and babies (fathers and other children are also welcome) for our photo competition. The winner will receive an adult and child size t-shirt in a new range we will be launching shortly (watch this space). The photos will be posted online and the winner will most likely be on the cover of our forthcoming Update newsletter, so only enter if you are happy for your picture to be public.

Here's the brief. There are some worrying signs that policy makers and others are being successfully wooed by the baby food industry and other corporations who don't want controls on harmful practices. Perhaps its a sign of the financial crisis and governments cutting back and wanting money for national and international programmes. Perhaps its part of the industry's 'rearguard action' against our successful campaign to bring in legislation in so many countries (see Update 42). Whatever the reason, we need to do more to remind politicians and other organisations that too often while companies are counting their profits, others have to count the real costs.

So we are looking for pictures of mothers, fathers and families with babies holding written or printed messages for politicians saying things like: "Don't forget us". "Health before profits". "Protect our babies". You can come up with your own messages - and they can be in any language (the more the better, just be sure to send us a translation with your photo!)

This is not just about protecting babies from Nestlé and in the developing world. The UK Government recently scrapped the posts of Infant Feeding Coordinator at the Department of Health and ended its support for National Breastfeeding Week. We are campaigning about this - and your photos will help.

We will use them wherever we need to remind politicians of their responsibility to protect mothers, babies and their families from irresponsible marketing of baby foods. You can send them to mikebrady@babymilkaction.org

(Note: we are always looking for photos for the popular IBFAN Breastfeeding Calendar, so those are also welcome).