Damaria Sylvie Mbas-Diam (right), of CIFAS.

or over a year, the Cameroon infant feeding group known as CIFAS has been running a workplace nursery at an open-air market in one of the poorer sections of Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon. The Elig-Edzoa district was chosen after a survey revealed that none of the women who run the makeshift stalls were able to breastfeed because they "preferred to keep selling", said Damaria Sylvie Mbas-Diam. 

The crèche is called the PAMA, an acronym that translates from French as the mother-friendly meeting point for breastfeeding, working (or economically active) women. It is built of planks and equipped with basic amenities. CIFAS trained 30 women from the community in May last year, in lactation management, advantages of breastfeeding, immunisation and nutrition. 

It is these women who are running the PAMA. They not only take care of the babies while the mothers are working, but also provide women with information about the benefits of breastfeeding and conduct demonstrations on the use of local weaning foods. Because the women are illiterate, the PAMA staff have devised a colour-coded table of nutritious foods: green for protection, red for "building" food, and yellow for strength - the three colours on the Cameroon national flag. 

"The women had to be persuaded to bring their babies",' Mbas-Diam said. "It wasn't as if they just arrived at the PAMA the moment they heard that it had opened". Often the health workers would make a purchase to break the ice, and get talking about the PAMA. 

It has worked, and the PAMA in Elig-Edzoa today is a "success story". On its first birthday two politicians, both of them women, were invited to attend a lively ceremony that got very good press coverage. One of the special invitees, the Deputy Mayor of Elig-Edzoa, was so impressed, said Mbas-Diam that she intends to exclusively breastfeed her eighth child.