Ideas for Action  

What you can do:  

Activities related to this year's theme: 

TEACHERS AND PARENTS   

• Contact your local school board and those in charge of curriculum development. Ask that breastfeeding  be included in the curriculum for subjects such as  Human Development, Family life Studies, Sociology, Psychology, History, Women´s Studies, Home Economics, Health Education, Science and Biology. 
• Campaign for breastfeeding education to be part of recertifying requirements for teachers of all of the above subjects. 
• Develop a Baby Friendly Nursery School Initiative (see page 4,  Ten Steps for Breastfeeding Friendly Nurseries). 

• Review books in the library for positive breastfeeding images and practices.  Replace unsupportive books with better options 
• Ask the children to interview their mothers and neighbors about  their breastfeeding experiences, discuss the answers in class and correct misinformation. 
• Develop guessing games to discover the purpose of the components of breastmilk. 
• Develop a coloring book for children about breastfeeding. Have an art and story or song competition about breastfeeding. 
• Have the children ask parents and neighbors when and how their babies first started to eat other foods, discuss the answers in class and investigate why there are differences in the ages and foods that mothers introduce. 
• Inspect schoolrooms for toys that promote bottle feeding, such as baby dolls with bottles or pacifiers. Ask parents and teachers to replace them with breastfeeding dolls and feeding utensils for children. 
• Place posters, brochures and other information about breastfeeding in school-based health centers and family education centers. 

• Develop a task force to review and update curricula to assure the integration of breastfeeding in appropriate areas such as: in images of mothers and babies, in science modules on reproduction, in nutrition modules on infant nutrition, in sociology curriculum on the infant formula controversy and North-South relations, in current events modules on food security and ecology, in history modules on the profession of wet nursing; 
• Use or adapt the model curriculum that was developed by the New York State Department of Health for all levels for children from ages  five (preprimary) through  eighteen (secondary graduation); 
• Establish a school policy that allows adolescent mothers to bring their breastfeeding babies to school or to express milk during the school day; 
• Establish a school policy  that supports teachers and staff who are breastfeeding while working. 

• Integrate breastfeeding into all levels of curriculum in all professional training schools: Economics, Finance, Marketing, Ecology, History, Business, Sociology, Anthropology, Women's Studies, Psychology,  Social Work, Microbiology,  Chemistry,  Education, Law, Medicine and Art. 
• Introduce new or evaluate different types of questionnaires and methodologies for obtaining information on infant feeding practices. 
• Have students monitor TV presentations on formula use and breastfeeding. Discuss them in  their classes, such as Marketing class, English literature, Sociology, History and Law. 
• Have students do searches on breastfeeding and formula feeding in the Internet and discuss the sites that they find. 
• Bring a breastfeeding mother to school with her baby and let  her talk about her experience. 
• Establish on-campus child care and breastfeeding/milk expression facilities for teachers, staff and students to use. 
• Have students write a term paper or thesis topic on an issue related to breastfeeding. 
• Develop a student intervention to work with health clinics and schools to inform the community about the importance of breastfeeding and appropriate infant feeding practices. 
• Have the students tell their breastfeeding history and analyze their own or their mother's experiences. 
• Develop a  Woman and Baby Friendly University Initiative. (Information about this Initiative may be found on the WABA website). 

• Initiate a breastfeeding clinic at the medical, nursing, nutrition and other health professional schools and rotate all students through the clinic. 
• Sensitize your fellow faculty, department heads, deans and others to the need to review and improve the breastfeeding content of existing curricula and/or teaching materials. 
• Sensitize key staff of ministries of health and education to the need for curriculum reform and urge them to include preservice curriculum work as part of a comprehensive national breastfeeding program. 
• Use textbooks with good information on breastfeeding.  Demand that textbooks be revised to include state of the art information on breastfeeding and lactation management. 
• Participate in or devise internships, fellowships or other intensive educational experiences focusing on breastfeeding promotion and clinical lactation management. 
• Include lactation management in health professional licensure exams and standards of practice. 

Participate in active sharing of experiences, lessons learned, models, resources with others in your own community or through existing networks on the Internet. 

General Activities:  

• Competitions and exhibits of paintings, drawings, photographs or essays in school on "Breastfeeding"; 
• Dance, theater and music shows on the theme;
• Games and recreational activities on "Breastfeeding" for schools; 
• Publicize and, if you have a website, put a link to the WABA site;
• Write to your Congressman/woman, development activist groups, and anyone you know who is working for children's education and tell them how important breastfeeding is and ask that they support breastfeeding in their legislation and other appropriate activities.
• Contact government agencies responsible for the education and invite them to join WBW events.
• Involve neighborhood associations, mothers clubs, women's groups, NGOs in your activities.
• Use the WBW as an occasion to have UNICEF hand out "Baby Friendly Hospital" certificates.
• Ask health professionals to talk about breastfeeding in their meetings with pre-natal and post-natal mothers.
• Ask your local hospitals if they meet the Unicef/World Health Organization's Baby Friendly Initiative 
• Contact stores and ask them to put a World Breastfeeding Week poster in their window during the WBW. If you have stickers, buttons or other promotional items to advertise WBW, let them have some to give to their customers.
• Put the information about WBW in your local religious newsletter, local newspaper and free grocery store handout newsletters.
• Ask your pediatrician to display a WBW poster and handouts. 
• Wear a WBW T-shirt, button or sticker everywhere you go during the month of August. 
• Send a copy of the press release to your local paper 
• Contact local breastfeeding groups to see what activities they have planned. 
• Donate a copy of a breastfeeding book to the local library, hospital or birth center 
• Organize a community meeting to discuss this year's theme. 
• Offer to help a new mom out with breastfeeding 
• Take a pregnant mom to a breastfeeding meeting with you 

Nurse your baby! 

Internet  

What you can do: 

• WABA has created some illustration for WBW'99, you can retrieve these images and produce your own materials. Just point the mouse at the desired picture, click on the right-hand button and save it in your hard disk!
• Use the discussion lists and newsgroups to disseminate WBW activities.
• Visit women's sites and sites on education and leave your message on this year's WBW theme. 
• Organize and disseminate a "chat" on breastfeeding and environment, during the WBW, on the various IRC channels (Internet Relay Chat).
• Add these or similar words to your e-mail "signature": 

"World Breastfeeding Week - 1-7 August  
Breastfeeding - Education for Life". 
 

Building an Action Plan 

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