Detroit’s Focus: Hope and Breastfeeding Mothers Unite (BFMU) along with HealthConnect One have teamed up to create a talent show and Healthy Families Awareness Day on Sat., Mar. 2, 2013. The event will take place at the Focus: Hope Center for Children at 1550 Oakman Blvd. in Detroit from 12 noon to 3 p.m. While the event is free and open to all members of the community, registration is required.
Collaboratively, the organizing groups decided that a talent show is a great, fun way to bring the community together and push the importance of family health to a captive audience. Moon Aku (Afrykayn Moon) who was told to leave a S.M.A.R.T. bus by a driver in August 2011 for attempting to board in Taylor while nursing her newborn, has partnered with Focus: Hope and HealthConnect One to bring this Healthy Families Awareness event to Detroit. Moon is no stranger to community activism--she organized a well-attended rally in Lansing on the steps of the Capitol in July 2012 to help raise awareness about breastfeeding the issues surrounding it. Moon is also the president and founder of BFMU. Ms. Moon has already recruited Mayoral Candidate (and former State Representative) Lisa Howze, Cortez Brown from the Detroit 300, Robert Lewis Robinson II from It Takes A Village, Y'All, A.I.D.S. Partnership of Michigan to participate along with Mr. Kerry Lacy to serve as the event's emcee.
Talent show participants can win prizes including a photo shoot, gift cards and more. In addition to the talent show, the event’s activities include learning how to cook healthy on a budget, the benefits of breastfeeding and what doulas are and why they are important as well as information and discussions about why the community supporting families makes stronger families. And, stronger families in turn, help build a stronger community.
BFMU’s mission “is to strengthen families and bring together communities through the support, empowerment and advocacy of mothers doing what is right and natural for their children; as well as increasing awareness and providing education to the outside community.” BFMU also provides education and support to breastfeeding mothers and their surrounding communities and has goals to: increase understanding of the risks brought on by harassment of breastfeeding mothers; increase understanding of the risks that impact women’s health; increase understanding of the risks of not breastfeeding infants/children; empower women to promote their health through education, prenatal care and good nutrition; promote understanding on the communities’ [including men] integral role in the pregnancy, infant care and family health and well-being; provide information and education to service providers and community organizers; provide understanding to the importance of women being seen breastfeeding in public; and advocate for stronger laws to protect women who breastfeed in public.
Those goals are in concert with the mission and core values of Focus: Hope, which was founded in 1968 by Eleanor M. Josaitis and Father William T. Cunningham. HealthConnect One is also dedicated to community activism and the support of healthy families in its role as a “the national leader in advancing respectful, community-based, peer-to-peer support for pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and early parenting. [HealthConnect One’s] vision is to see every baby, mother and family thrive in a healthy community.”
To learn more about the Healthy Family Awareness Day event and for additional information please visit the Breastfeeding Mothers Unite website or their Facebook page. You can also contact Moon Aku directly at bfmunite [at] gmail.com and follow BFMU on Twitter: @bfmunite.
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