World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action : WABA

A Summary of WABA Mother Friendly Workplace Initiative (MFWI) Seedgrant Recipients : 1994 - 2006 (12 Years)

No.	Year	Group / Organisation	Country	Project Description
1	1994	ARUGAAN - (to nurture fully or to take care of entirely)	Philippines	Provided support systems for working women with regard to childcare, breastfeeding counselling, health and nutrition information; created mother-support groups; established mother-friendly initiatives.
2	1994	CIFAS - Cameroon Infant Feeding Association	Cameroon	As part of the MFWI, the CIFAS project set up breastfeeding support centres called the PAMA - Point Ami des Mères Actives Allaitantes. This is a centre where mothers can continue breastfeeding, nutritional follow-up, and thus work with enhanced productivity. The first PAMA creche was set-up in the Elig-Edzoa market place. PAMA creches outside the Yaounde regions were launched during vaccination and health information days held for women who work on farms and who are casual labourers.
3	1994	GINAN - Ghana Infant Nutrition Action Network	Ghana	Provided peer counselling services to make the market place a baby-friendly environment. It trained market women as key promoters of breastfeeding in the market place to provide on the spot counselling services to their breastfeeding colleagues. The purpose of this is to increase awareness and knowledge of nutritional, emotional and contraceptive importance of breastfeeding.
4	1994	GVT - Green Valley Trust	India	The two key activities stressed: 1. Lobbying school and industry management personnel to ensure the implementation of laws for adequate provision of childcare facilities, and 2. Training teachers and industrial workers, in conjunction with health workers and consumer advocates, on human lactation management.
5	1994	MAPBIN / CHAN - The Maternal and Child Health Department (MAPBIN), Institute for Consumer Protection (ICP)	Mauritius	Organised sufficient media activity publicising the newly emerged Mother Friendly Workplaces. Also conducted training and sensitisation workshops with employers and trade unions to push for the proper enforcement of existing legislation which provides daily one hour breaks.
6	1994	PREPARE - India Rural Reconstruction & Disaster Response Service	India	Provided support to women with information on the benefits of breastfeeding, trained mothers in lactation management, and set up village level vigilance committees to counter sales promotion of commercial milk.
7	1994	Sagkeeng-Anicabe - (to Encourage Breastfeeding by Adolescent Mothers Returning to School)	Canada	1. Encouraged breastfeeding by adolescent mothers so that they could return to school. 2. Promoted breastfeeding as cultural norm, so that breastfeeding and care of infants would not hinder the education of young mothers. Also trained school personnel and health care workers to develop a suitable curriculum to incorporate the special needs of students of this community. 3. Encouraged the school to incorporate young infants in the proposed day care setting within the school, so that mothers of infants are able to attend school and continue breastfeeding.
8	1994	SINAN - Swaziland Infant Nutrition Action Network	Swaziland	Initiated a day care centre at the Swaziland Fruit Canners (Swazican) where 95 per cent of the workforce is women.
9	1994-1997	Federation of Community Centres of The Justice & Peace Commission	India	1. Worked directly with pregnant women, and women with babies up to the age of three years and to create awareness on the advantages of breastfeeding and the dangers of bottle feeding and other manufactured baby foods. 2. Networked with groups who are already involved in breastfeeding promotion and to disseminate information to community centres. 3. Compiled information at the legislative level and worked out various lobbying techniques to encourage government reforms by making recommendations for suitable changes at women's workplaces to enable women to breastfeed at their workplaces. 4. Negotiated with private companies to extend flexi-time facilities (already implemented for women executives) to women factory workers.
10	1994-1997	Family Welfare Association	Sri Lanka	Conducted a study of the problems of mothers who have been deprived of breastfeeding their children and children who have been deprived of breastmilk.
11	1997	ARUGAAN - (to nurture fully or to take care of entirely)	Philippines	Developed training modules for setting up crèches.
12	1998-1999	CIFAS - Cameroon Infant Feeding Association	Cameroon	WABA's seedgrant supported the second PAMA in Yaounde: PAMA Obili, which was formally launched in 1998. The seedgrants project has enabled CIFAS to sustain the crèche's development so far and to plan for more creches in the formal sectors in future.
13	1998-1999	IBFAN - International Baby Food Action Network	Benin	IBFAN Benin set up a PAMA crèche in the Dantokpa market - the International market of Cotonou, and an informal place of work for a vast number of women in the Cotonou community.
14	1998-1999	AVAMS - The Association des volontaires pour l'allaitement maternel au Senegal	Senegal	AVAMS launched the Grand Thies Central Market creche, the fourth creche to be set up by AVAMS. The Thies Market creche serves the informal sector which includes market vendors, housewives who shop at the market, and housewives living within the neighbourhood.
15	1998-1999	APAIB - Association pour la promotion de l'alimentation infantile au Burkina Faso	Burkina Faso	1. Carried out a nationwide campaign on breastfeeding at the workplace. 2. Trained 30 working women on how to initiate action for breastfeeding rights in both the formal and informal sector.
16	1998-1999	ORIGEM - Grupo Origem	Brazil	ORIGEM works with and coordinates the activities of ten community based women's organisations in Recife in Northern Brazil. This constellation of groups are part of ORIGEM's "Milky Way Project" that support women working in the informal sector by operating a community nursery. With the WABA seedgrant, ORIGEM trained 10 women's groups to make breastfeeding / birthing dolls. ORIGEM's breastfeeding doll was printed in all World Breastfeeding Week 1999 - "Breastfeeding: Education for Life" materials.
17	1998-1999	AEI - Ard El Insan	Palestine	AEI launched their Workplace Nursery in the Gaza Strip which will be funded in part by the MFWI seedgrant. The nursery aims to be self-supporting in the long-term, and will generate income by charging small fees to mothers.
18	2001	BPNI - Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India	India	Conducted an interactive session on maternity benefits for working women at Indian Women's Press Corp to enlist support of journalists, to discuss how to involve media on the subject of maternity protection, and how media could help in the campaign to provide maternity protection to unorganised sector and to increase benefits in organised sector.
19	2001	BK.PP-ASI/YASIA in cooperation with the State Ministry for Women Empowerment	Indonesia	The project involved a rapid assessment of workers' experiences with Maternity Protection and breastfeeding in a large shoe factory, plus pilot testing of an information leaflet for workers for the purpose of establishing a mother-friendly worksite.
20	2001	ARUGAAN - (to nurture fully or to take care of entirely)	Philippines	ARUGAAN developed three educating / entertaining audio tapes catered to workers and trade unions about maternity protection. The audio programmes allow women workers to listen while at the factory, on the bus to work, or on the radio at home. The three programmes include a "quiz show", a "shop opera", and an interview show. Focus group discussions with women workers were used to pilot test the tapes. The programmes can be easily adapted in other countries.
21	2001	SINAN - Swaziland Infant Nutrition Action Network	Swaziland	A seminar was organised to educate women workers and the Women's Wing of a national trade union about ILO Convention 183 on Maternity Protection as a way to establish cooperation with the unions and organise future joint activities on Maternity Protection.
22	2001	RHIRC - Reproductive Health Information & Research Center	Vietnam	A research project interviewing workers, policy-makers, employers, and community leaders was undertaken to learn why the national six-month maternity leave had been cut back to fpur months. The lessons learnt gave some perspectives to and inform the situation of other post-communist countries.
23	2001	CEPHAD - Center for Public Health and Development	Vietnam	A meeting of 31 senior stakeholders, including 25 breastfeeding mothers from a variety of work sectors was held to introduce several new topics: C183, exclusive breastfeeding, Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), and the national maternity protection code. The aim was to get more political support for maternity protection and mother-friendly workplaces in order to take steps towards making the different work sectors more mother-baby friendly.
24	2001	NFNC - National Food & Nutrition Centre	Zimbabwe	A meeting was organised to orient high level stakeholders and discuss concrete steps toward ratification of C183. The meeting brought all key stakeholders, particularly those who attended the ILO Conference in 2000, together to plan for ratification.
25	2001-2003	AWDC - Azerbaijan Women and Development Centre	Azerbaijan	Conducted a survey of working women and high school students who are mothers on the situation of breastfeeding and maternity protection. The project aimed to support women who participate in the survey with breastfeeding counselling, and to link them with mother support groups.
26	2001-2003	World Vision & Ministry of Health breastfeeding coordinator	Cambodia	Conducted a three-day training on creche development for representatives from labour, employers, government, and other stakeholders, with the goal of setting up a model creche at a GAP factory for the South East Asian region.
27	2001-2003	CLARITAS - The Child Rights' Protection Association of Georgia	Georgia	Conducted a survey to assess the status of maternity protection and to find out how well-informed women are about their rights under national law. Participants were also given complete information about their rights.
28	2001-2003	Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India	India	In Mumbai, India, the local BPNI branch organised a presentation sensitising a local women's association on teaching mothers and mothers-in-law about work and breastfeeding to build women's confidence and develop their skills for giving mother support.
29	2001-2003	Lao Women's Union	Laos	Conducted a workshop in 2003 to train members of the Lao Women's Union (the main body on women's issues in the country equivalent to the Ministry of Women's Affairs) and other stakeholders on Mother Friendly Workplace, creche development and mother support. Funds were also given to support three Vietnamese participants to learn from this workshop and organise similar trainings in Vietnam.
30	2001-2003	LKEVAB	Latvia	Conducted a pilot survey on telephone, paper and website. Results of the national survey in 2004 were linked with a pilot programme of worksite workshops on Maternity Protection.
31	2001-2003	PPPIM - Malaysian Breastfeeding Association	Malaysia	A joint project in collaboration with the Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) and the Malaysian Breastfeeding Association (PPPIM) produced a booklet on "Balancing Work and Breastfeeding" with 3,000 copies distributed to 30 workers' associations, and members of MTUC. Breastfeeding is now part of the MTUC's agenda on maternity protection.
32	2001-2003	COUNSENUTH & TAMA	Tanzania	A survey of 57 women in seven institutions was conducted to find out the status of maternity protection, breastfeeding, and childcare for women workers. The results helped to plan long-term strategising on a national maternity protection campaign.
33	2001-2003	ULMET - Uganda Lactation Management and Education Team	Uganda	A survey of 303 female employees and 104 employers/managers of either sex was conducted to assess the status of maternity protection and to find out whether women suffer discrimination because of maternal roles.
34	2001-2003	CGFED - Research Centre for Gender, Family and Environment in Development	Vietnam	A research project to document the challenges that face informal sector women in breastfeeding. Forty-one female street vendors were interviewed singly or in focus groups.
35	2001-2003	NFNC - National Food and Nutrition Centre	Zambia	A meeting was organised to orient high level stakeholders and discuss concrete steps toward ratification of C183. A second grant was made in late 2003 for a follow-up meeting.
36	2004	VHSS (Voluntary Health Service Society), & TARIF (Training, Advocacy and Research on Infant Feeding)	Bangladesh	Travelling seminar was conducted to sensitise and motivate policy-makers and opinion leaders.
37	2004	MWAV - Mothers & Women Against Violence	Bulgaria	Prepared materials and organised a two-day training about maternity protection laws, C-183, and breastfeeding for 40 government leaders, stakeholders, and NGOs. Bulgaria is the only country with a seedgrant that has ratified C183. The findings from this seminar show how much work needs to be done on implementation and monitoring.
38	2004	AFOLAN - Association to Encourage Natural Lactation	Costa Rica	Adapted the Maternity Protection Campaign workshop done in October 2004 in Costa Rica, and presented it to local breastfeeding committees at local facilities of the health system, hospitals, and parliament. Each workshop made a local plan of action to improve maternity protection. In the fall of 2005, a national meeting will be held where these local plans cn be combined into a national plan, leading to a campaign for ratification of C183.
39	2004	CIDH, Centro Int'l para el Desarrollo Humano - International Centre of Human Development	Costa Rica	Adapted an existing Spanish-language document about the value of breastfeeding, human milk, and women's work. Distributed the adaptation along with the Maternity Protection Kit in Spanish on CD. A popular handout and a powerpoint presentation on the topic were also produced. 73 copies of the document and 35 copies of the powerpoint CD have been distributed so far, including copies made available to breastfeeding advocacy groups in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and Nicaragua. The powerpoint has been used with several audiences, including a group of 200 at the medical college.
40	2004	Grupo Mujeres de Guarari	Costa Rica	A women's group and a youth group coordinated a community education and mobilisation project about maternity protection in a low-income area using participatory methodology. A group of 22 people was formed to follow up the plans made during the training. These plans include woman-to-woman support, legal counselling aided by a volunteer advisor in labour laws, and replication of the programme with other communities.
41	2004	CONAPLAM - National Commission for Breastfeeding	Guatemala	Popular educational materials for a campaign was developed which was kicked off at a national workshop on Maternity Protection, a follow-up activity of a panel held in World Breastfeeding Week 2004. The goal of the workshop was to develop a proposal for a draft maternity protection law. The materials were to help raise general awareness and to teach working women about their rights.
42	2004	ACASH - Association for Consumers Action on Safety & Health	India	Organised and assisted domestic workers in Khar Danda slum community near Mumbai: 1. Surveyed mothers about their current breastfeeding and child care practices. 2. Raised awareness about advantages of continuing breastfeeding while working. 3. Facilitated Mother Friendly Workplace for these workers by organising meetings to sensitise employers. 4. Recognised supportive employers at a public meeting - media coverage. 5. Networked with other organisations which work with domestic workers.
43	2004	Indonesian Breastfeeding Promotion Foundation	Indonesia	Worked closely with government ministries of manpower and women empowerment. Selected three model workplaces from a list of enterprises identified as having best practices for protection of women workers.
44	2004	PRWSWO - Pakistan Rural Workers Social Welfare Organisation	Pakistan	Sensitised 50 local elected representatives by two-day training on maternity protection and breastfeeding. A call for the representatives was made to introduce legislation for ratification and for better maternity protection laws; and to promote breastfeeding and infant care through an awareness raising campaign at grass root level.
45	2004	CCHC - Center for Children Care / IBFAN Group	Serbia & Montenegro	Translated Every Woman's Right to Breastfeed (a WABA pamphlet). The pamphlets were distributed through the BFHI network to five maternities, six prenatal care sites, and a children's NGO in five communities, using this opportunity to talk with parents and health workers about the issue of community support for breastfeeding in the workplace.
46	2004	CCHD - Center for Community Health Development (LIGHT)	Vietnam	Set up a model mother support group called "Healthy Mothers, Healthy Children Club" in factories that employ low-waged women workers - three factories were selected. Materials were prepared for teaching breastfeeding skills to women, and staff was trained for counselling and breastfeeding promotion.
48	2005	Youth for Change	Costa Rica	Interviewed women to collect their personal stories or testimonies about "the links between employment and being a mother taking care of their families". Prepared interview guidelines. Collected testimonies from Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. http://www.cefemina.org/Testimonios/testimonios.html
49	2005	CEFEMINA	Costa Rica	More copies of MP Kit CD and other existing materials were made, and distributed in Costa Rica and in Latin America, in building towards a national alliance on Maternity Protection. The needs of different target groups were analysed and messages were formatted to suit the audience.
50	2005	IBFAN Arab World (IAW)