Save the Children offices around the world are celebrating World Breastfeeding Week from 1-7 August. Bangladesh conducted some targetted activities - participating in a nutrition fair and a community-focussed activities in four districts.
Targetting the government with a Nutrition Fair
Institute of Public Health and Nutrition (IPHN) held a nutrition fair on the 2August in partnership with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and Bangladesh Breast Feeding Foundation (BBFF) in cooperation with UNICEF.
The key participants of the fair were the stakeholders working on breastfeeding including national and international NGOs, along with the key ministries.
Save the Children Bangladesh had a stall in the nutrition fair where materials and information related to breast feeding and complementary feeding, pregnant and lactating mothers and nutrition and health were available. The materials related to the programs such as brochures, booklets, festoons, job-aids, leaflets were on display and distributed in the fair.
The nutrition fair was inaugurated by the Additional Secretary, Minister of Health and Family Welfare. The Chairperson of BBFF presented this year's concept note on breast feeding. The Directorate General from the DGFP and DGHS were present at the fair and carried out a dialogue on the importance of breast feeding. The honorable state minister for MoHFW and Director of IPHN along with the line director of National Nutrition Services were chief guests at the event and they delivered their speech highlighting the important of Breast Feeding and the advantages of partnerships and linkages to facilitate breast feeding.
The community clinics organized a 'quiz competition' with the community groups and mothers, where the winner was awarded a prize for answering correctly to breastfeeding related questions. The quiz competition was followed by a discussion between the community groups and mothers regarding breastfeeding. This session took place in multiple areas and will continue for the entire breastfeeding week.
For the entire breastfeeding week, the community clinics created a breastfeeding corner for the mothers to come and discuss their issues. The breastfeeding corner provided counseling and information.
Additionally, court yard sessions are taking place amongst pregnant and lactating mothers and will continue to do so over the week. The court yard sessions are also providing counseling, awareness and information about breastfeeding and related issues.
There have been extensive announcements made for awareness in the project areas regarding breastfeeding.The public announcements highlighted the access to the breastfeeding corners created in the community clinics and the court yard sessions taking place this entire week.
