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Community
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Tuesday, 03 November 2009 05:35 |
By James Ginderske
Like their photo of a peaceful newborn baby, fliers for a new project called “The Mama Cafe” are nestled quietly amid ones touting politics, rock shows, and world peace at places around the neighborhood.
Their purpose is to acquaint people with a dynamic, local-based program designed “to provide support and community for parents or expectant parents pursuing healthy lifestyles.”
Assembled by Rogers Park native Manda Aufochs Gillespie and Malik Turley, The Mama Cafe hopes to bring green ideas and the empowerment that comes with physical action to parents, “especially among new parents,” says Gillespie.
Turley and Gillespie secured a small grant from the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC), and used it to work out a 12 week, innovative and community-based program that goes well beyond the dry seminars that just harangue parents about what they ought to be doing for their families.
Gillespie (of The Green Mama) and Turley (of the Hip Circle Studio) feel that they have a better idea, putting women together, whenever possible, from different backgrounds and hosting a discussion that’s as much about building connections and community as it is about the topics themselves. Sessions are, according to Gillespie, “less classes and more groups.”
Those groups include topics like “Moving With Your Baby,” “Baby Sign Language,” and “Breastfeeding at Work,” and Gillespie says that one important aspect of their program is that moms are “encouraged to be both experts and questioners” at their sessions.
Another essential part of the The Mama Cafe is the idea that many parents, according to Gillespie, “don’t have a community around them” to share and discuss healthy living information.
One example of that is the idea of breastfeeding. Gillespie says that in spite of a generally indifferent society, “I think it’s a huge deal how comfortable a woman feels” when making the choice whether to breastfeed their baby.
Gillespie believes people often don’t appreciate “how difficult it is for women to nurse a child,” and cites the fact that after maternity leave, many women find themselves “stuck in bathroom stalls or a gym somewhere to pump” breast milk for their babies.
In cases like that, Gillespie insists that it’s “amazing what a supportive group like this can do ... because perception around this stuff is always a barrier.”
Gillespie and Turley are also very focused on physical motion, and on helping women learn techniques that make it “easy to move around with your child.”
Turley’s work with Hip Circle Studio, which they say “provides a blend of classes, services, resources, and community events” mixes readily with the informational focus of Gillespie’s “The Green Mama” website, producing an original experience not quite like anything else in the community.
Gillespie and Turley also feel that it is “really, really important” to make sure these classes reach women across traditional barriers of race and economics. Because, as Gillespie points out, there have “been tons of cutbacks to these types of programs,” the need is greater than ever before to “attract a wide variety of women.”
Gillespie notes, however, that “it takes a lot of work to reach low-income women,” a factor that challenges many educators. Part of the solution, however is building relationships, and while that takes time and persistent effort, success results in a community of moms that is bound together more by shared goals than economic circumstances.
For women who are curious about making healthy choices for their babies and themselves, and face the daunting task of motherhood in a complicated society, The Mama Cafe hopes to provide a peaceful, safe place to sort through challenges, bust up myths, and make the new friends and connections that help make being a mom every bit the empowering experience Gillespie and Turley believe it can be.
Editor’s note: The Mama Cafe (at The Common Cup, 1501 W. Morse) is $5 a session, or $35 for 11 weeks, and scholarships are available. For more info or to register, call (773) 281-9828, or you can e-mail Gillespie at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
. The websites of Gillespie and Turley are http://www.TheGreenMama.com and http://www.HipCircleStudio.com, respectively. |
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