I have already written more than enough on here about DorkySon’s birth, and how different the experience was to the one I had imagined and hoped for. There is no need to go over all of that again.
But I’m very pleased to have my blog as a space to mention a campaign that has recently been launched – A Midwife For Me – which I think is doing a lot to address some of the issues I encountered.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the launch of Save the Children’s campaign on breastfeeding, and their report Superfood for Babies, which details some of the barriers to breastfeeding in the developed world.
The focus of the campaign has now shifted to concentrate on one of those barriers in more details; the marketing tactics of multinational breastmilk substitute companies.
Despite 30 years of guidelines, there are continued reports of some breast milk substitute companies marketing their products in an unethical manner.
You can read Save the Children’s full briefing on Nestlé and Danone here, along with this article in the Guardian from Zoe Williams which details the situation in Indonesia, but I also wanted to pick out a couple of things from the report that really shocked me and highlight them in a post. Continue reading
This time six years ago I was not a blogger. I was not a mum. I was not even married.
Six years ago, I worked full time for a coalition called Stop Climate Chaos. I would describe it to people as the climate change equivalent of Make Poverty History – a large, diverse group of development charities, environmental NGOs, churches, trade unions, student societies and many others – working together to campaign on issues around climate change. Continue reading
Last June, horrified by what they were reading in the news, bloggers across the UK came together to highlight the atrocities taking place in Syria. Last September, we united again; shocked that nothing had changed, appalled by the torture and terror being suffered by Syrian women and children.
Today, sadly, we have to do it once more. Continue reading
It is International Women’s Day on Friday.
Last year, I marked it on my blog with a post about Save the Children’s campaign to give women around the world access to reproductive health care.
This year, my thoughts have stayed a little closer to home, and I’ve decided to acknowledge some of the many incredible women who have had a direct impact on my life.
I started the post thinking I would just mention one or two, but as I started writing I found myself overwhelmed – in a good way – and I couldn’t even begin to narrow it down like that.
Women get a lot of stick sometimes, for their cattiness or for being seen as too competitive. True enough, there are some rotten ones out there… but there are also some incredible communities of women who support and nurture each other, and they are far more worthy of our attention. I count myself very lucky that in my life so far the good eggs have outweighed the stinkers by far.
Dorkymum | Stories from Tasmania 