Nestle Kills Babies

was the title of a pamphlet put out in the seventies when knowledge about the aggressive marketing of baby formula milk by companies such as Nestle was forcing a decline in breast feeding, with an impact of upping the infant mortality rate by 3 times. The horrendous things is that these companies are still doing exactly the same thing, with even more dire results. A report from this year by Save the Children suggests that 3,800 babies die A DAY because they are bottle fed and not breast fed. There is a good Guardian article here, about the impact of this figure on the worlds goal to reduce infant mortality by half by 2015. Not gonna happen unless Nestle and co buck up.
I feel so blessed today. It is my last day of term at LSE, and I am just pulling my essays together. One is on the above topic- the impact of transnational corporations on child rights- and another is on gender equality. How amazing is it, that this is the stuff I am passionate about, and I get to do it?
In a lecture this morning we were reminded about a quote from one of LSE's founders, George Bernard Shaw. Its a goodie:
"Some see things as they are and ask "Why?" others dream things as they never were and ask "Why not?" "
It is too easy to be one of the first, but I pray we will be the dreamers.