On the closing day for applications here’s an entry for the St Luke’s CARES Community Awards, submitted by Baby Week which celebrates newborns and the services that support them and their parents. For details of how YOUR community group can enter please click here. The deadline for entries is 5pm today (28 February 2018).
Baby Week is a multi professional, cross sector annual event, helping to raise awareness of the critical growth stages of a babies development. It is taken from the Early Years Initiative; Semana do Bebe (UNICEF) 2010 in Brazil and was brought over in 2016 by local south Leeds mum Lucy Potter.
Nowin it’s third year, it involves a wide variety of professionals from different sectors of the maternity, children and families services. The aim is to help inform and improve access to services available to families, throughout Leeds. Baby Week has been successful in working the Haamla team midwives at the St James’s Hospital last year to bring the Baby Box to the city. It has also organised activities within the communities held within children’s centre services for families, helping to reflect the cultural diversity and needs of the community.
Baby Week will be in November this year and aims to connect and engage families across the city. South Leeds is recognised as a thriving multicultural area, but also has pockets of social deprivation too. Baby Week is seeking funding from St Luke’s in particular help to provide publicity and host a one day event at St Matthew’s Community Centre in Holbeck.
It proposes to link local organisations together in south Leeds to create a ‘socialisation’ event for children and families. Families will be invited to attend and meet representatives from local services and take part in; Baby Massage – Baby Yoga, Healthy Eating classes, advice on jobs and training, family support, counselling, legal aid. The whole day would be wrapped up and served into different cuisines from around the world all of which are reflected and made by the families from their respective country.
The money would go to help families buy the right amount of food for the day and provide support for overseeing of the co-ordination of the cooking and the event. The aim from this would to provide families a wealth of information, share great food, learn new things and socialise. It would also be empowering for the families to share their cultures, and love of cooking with others.
The socialisation event would be an example of what could be replicated in different areas of the city. This is would provide a building frame to help Baby Week grow as helping to respond and address different needs of the city. It would help improve links to and between hard to reach communities with regards to infant, early years and well being.
