PepsiCo Foundation Announces Grant to Save the Children to Address Malnutrition in Developing Nations

PURCHASE, N.Y., Feb. 19, 2009 — The PepsiCo Foundation today announced a three-year, $5 million grant to Save the Children to help ensure the survival and well-being of children living in rural India and Bangladesh, which together are home to 40 percent of the world's malnourished children.

With support from the PepsiCo Foundation, Save the Children will work towards decreasing newborn and child mortality and child malnutrition in these countries. Save the Children proposes to work with community health educators to provide thousands of families, who are among these countries' poorest, with important information about health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene. The combined global resources of PepsiCo Foundation and Save the Children will help make a profound difference in the lives of 650,000 children under the age of five, along with mothers and pregnant and lactating women in these two countries.

"One of the goals of the PepsiCo Foundation is to address the fundamental need for all people to have access to proper nutrition," said Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo and chairman of PepsiCo Foundation. "With this new project, we seek to introduce and encourage healthy practices among mothers and young children that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives."

"It takes more than food to fight malnutrition," said Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children. "Protecting vulnerable children requires a comprehensive effort — one that includes the public, private and humanitarian sectors — to address the short- and long-term causes of hunger and poverty. PepsiCo Foundation's support of Save the Children's work in India and Bangladesh will help expand critical social protection, basic nutrition and safety net programs that, in turn, will help children there survive and thrive."

In India, Save the Children will work through community health groups to decrease newborn and child mortality and malnutrition by increasing use of health services, improving nutrition and hygiene practices and expanding access to safe water and latrines.