Nestle Egypt’s CSR activities embrace healthy habits

25 / 08 / 2019

By Ahmed Amer - Dina Mohamed - - | Edited by Marwa Nassar

Nestle Egypt has always cherished its social role and its corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have focused on spreading awareness among people about healthy habits and the importance of nutrition, especially for children.

This goes in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 3 on Health and Well-Being.

Nestle Egypt has been committed to raising awareness among people on healthy lifestyles through several successful initiatives which focused on children.

Nestle Egypt has recently held a roundtable on the company’s efforts to encourage adoption of healthier habits with special focus on children’s nutrition and Hepatitis Virus C treatment.

Among the most important overtures launched by the company was the “United for Healthier Kids” initiative which was carried out in collaboration with the National Research Center and private sector companies of Sanofi and ABB.

The United for Healthier Kids was established for the sole purpose of helping parents to establish healthier eating, drinking and lifestyle habits among their children through game-changing education and fun ideas to inspire action and influence behavior.

It is with this insight that United for Healthier Kids joined with the parties concerned to promote Feed Your Baby Like A Baby; MORE Managed Portions; MORE Fruits & Vegetables; MORE Movement; MORE Water, all scientifically proven to positively impact the quality of life.

Nestle Egypt through this three-year initiative sought to reach all Egyptians targeting young mothers (aged from 20 to 40 years), from all social and economic classes.

Nestle Egypt has also spearheaded the “Nestle Healthy Kids” program which is a global initiative. The program – launched in 2010 – is meant to raise nutrition, health and wellness awareness of school age children in Egypt with the ambition of building the foundation for a healthy generation.

“Nestle Healthy Kids” program concentrates on nutrition education in primary schools across Egypt. The program aims to encourage Egyptian school children to acquire positive nutrition habits with the intention of ensuring healthy growth and assisting in the protection against widespread diseases such as anemia, obesity and low immunity resulting from poor nutritional habits.

The program managed to offer help for about 750,000 children in 1,025 primary schools in 12 Egyptian governorates.

The “Nestle Healthy Kids” program mainly focused on building a solid foundation for nutritional knowledge among Egyptian school children by visiting each child 7 times and is given 40 minutes per visit. Each visit is divided into two main parts; the educational part followed by the physical activity part. The educational part takes place in the classroom wherein the well-trained and qualified facilitator applies the food guide pyramid recommendation, as well as induces various hygienic, nutritional and healthy eating habits in the first twenty minutes, in a fun, engaging, and interactive way. Nutritional information is not only delivered through in-class sessions, but also through exercises and activities relevant to each topic in the following twenty minutes. By constantly engaging with the students in a playful way, it helps ensure proper grasping of material provided by building link and interest. In order to keep the children excited and motivated we make a small competition and whoever wins gets a symbolic gift such as a coloring book, Nestle pins, or even a pencil case. The company also encouraged children to make a drawing about the information they retained.

Moreover, the company also launched “Baby & Me” initiative to help babies get the best possible start in life, as well as supporting mothers during their child’s first 1000 days of life. It is a given that the nutrition mothers and babies receive during a child’s early days has a crucial impact on their growth and development.

From conception to pregnancy and up to a child’s second birthday, the first 1000 days of life offer a unique window of opportunity to shape a healthier and more prosperous future for children.

Nestle Egypt is owned by Nestle S.A in Switzerland. It is the largest Nutrition, Health and Wellness company worldwide. It started operation in Africa at the end of the 19th in 1927 with the opening its first factory in South Africa. Today, Nestlé operates 27 factories in Africa providing direct employment to more than 16,000 employees. In the Arab World; North Africa and the Middle East, it operates 10 factories with total employment of 11,000. In Egypt, it operates three factories.