# Herbalife and children's charity NCH join forces - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/06/30/herbalife-and-children039s-charity-nch-join-forces/ - Published: 2006-06-30T08:18:11+01:00 - Author: Howard Lake London 21st June, 2006: London Leading children’s charity NCH has partnered with wellness experts Herbalife to establish a pilot programme in the UK designed to educate young carers about the importance of good nutrition and healthy eating.   Herbalife is funding a programme that will give young carers in the Hackney area of East London access to regular cooked meals as well as education and advice about shopping for food, cooking and nutrition. ## Advertisement   Acknowledging the vital role good nutrition can play in the lives of these young carers, Herbalife, one of the world’s leading providers of healthy living products, has teamed up with NCH to establish a Healthy Eating Project for young carers at NCH’s Hackney Young Carers. The project will provide healthy cooked meals for the children on a regular basis, as well as giving them advice on the kind of foods and meals they can prepare simply at home.   Vera Beining, project manager at NCH’s Hackney Young Carers said: Our young carers have so much responsibility and so much to accomplish in a day that food shopping and cooking is often not a high priority. They also don’t know much about nutrition so their diet and the family diet can be very poor. This combined with lack of exercise, can also lead to problems with weight.   “This project is practical in that it will provide good, nutritious food for these youngsters. It is also educational and social. Young carers can mix with others in a similar situation and get away from their day-to-day pressures for a while. It allows them to be children and make new friends.”   Hackney is one of the most deprived boroughs in London and NCH’s Hackney Young Carers Centre was established in 1998. There are currently 150 young carers aged between 5-18 years of age who attend the project.   It is estimated there are currently 175,000 young carers in the UK. These are children and young people under the age of 18 who care for a member of their family or household. That person may have a physical illness, a physical or learning disability, a mental health problem, be elderly and frail, or be suffering from drug or alcohol misuse. Young carers take on enormous responsibility, often forsaking their own childhood and schooling in order to do so. Although they have some state support they are, in effect, the head of the family, responsible for all the main caring functions within the family unit.   Herbalife is partnering with NCH as part of its Casa Herbalife programme. The Casa Herbalife programme was established to support the concept of good nutrition for children and young people. The company now supports a total of 12 projects around the world.   Neil Spiers, Vice President, North Region said: “This programme puts a healthy cooked meal at its centre which underlines our commitment as a company to good nutrition for everyone. It also enables these young people to have fun in a learning environment. We are very excited to be backing what is a pilot project in the UK for NCH and applaud the charity’s proactivity in recognizing the vital role of good nutrition in everyone’s lives.”   Both Herbalife independent distributors and their staff in the EMEA headquarters in Uxbridge will be engaging in fundraising activities throughout the year. The company’s key fundraising focus will be the London Triathlon of which Herbalife is official nutrition sponsor and in which more than 170 distributors and staff are expected to take part.   * **[Charity Champions announced for Prestigious Beacon Prize](https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/07/03/charity-champions-announced-prestigious-beacon-prize/)**( 3 July 2006) * **[Cholera patients in Ikotos county, southern Sudan](https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/07/05/cholera-patients-ikotos-county-southern-sudan/)**( 5 July 2006) * **[WER launches cholera epidemic appeal](https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/07/05/wer-launches-cholera-epidemic-appeal/)**( 5 July 2006)