State Assembly candidate Jeff Gorell teaches a class at CLU and recently he invited me to speak to his students on a variety of topics including using technology to lobby for issues they are passionate to support. Student Peggy Zherdev believes that we need to promote breastfeeding more and she has started a blog as a way of sharing her thoughts.
Check it out:
Peggy Zherdev's breastfeeding policy blog
Please check out her blog and leave some feedback for her project.
Peggy, have you spoken to any local leaders on what they can do to support your cause? I would be interested in how much you needed to educate them. What local businesses are breastfeeding friendly? The Simi Valley Town Center Mall has great facilities for families. ( No, Mall Spokesperson Keith Jajko you don't need to pay me for that plug.)
While ridiculing Assemblyman Kevin de Leon (Los Angeles) for his handgun ammo ban bill, I remember reading that he sponsored some legislation to give women lactation breaks in the workplace.
Good luck with your project, Peggy!
That's wonderful that De Leon sponsored some good legislation. Unfortunately Mr De Leon is a enemy of freedom and is afraid of his constituents. If he won't trust us, why should we trust him?
Jeff and Geoff deserve the support of Ventura County!
Hello Brian and thank you for mentioning my humble efforts to change the way breastfeeding is viewed and supported. Funny you ask about breastfeeding friendly businesses. As part of my graduate project, I am proposing to encourage cities to publicly acknowledge businesses that are breastfeeding friendly and go beyond the minimum legal requirements to accomodate their clients, customers, and employees that are breastfeeding Moms. It will be done by online nomination and will give businesses good publicity. The second component of my project entails more of a civic engagement movement of volunteer Moms that will become peer counselors to new Moms that are home. Instead of the new Mom looking for help, the volunteer counselor will reach out to her hopefully before she has given up nursing her baby.
As for contacting our local leaders, I plan on working along with the Breastfeeding Task Force of Greater Los Angeles. I am part of the Advocacy Committee and we are meeting this week, in fact, to decide what our next move is. Typically we split a list and contact our local leaders by making appointments to meet them in-person about our latest strategy to raise awareness and ask for their support and input. I also hope to meet with Dennis Zine, our city councilman in Woodland Hills, and talk about recognizing businesses for being breastfeeding friendly. Any ideas on any of this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for the plug, Brian, sorry it took so long to read this (was kind of busy with the tree-lighting event!). While I'm here, another plug: Miss Simi Valley will be reading to preschool-age children this Saturday, Nov. 21, at Simi Valley Town Center during its free weekly Kids Club at 11 a.m. in Center Court, as part of First 5 Ventura County's "Early Literacy Month" activities. There also will be other activities for young children at this event including crafts.
Kids Club is every Saturday at 11 a.m. at the mall and it is always free.