Founded in 2011, The Institute of Science Technology Breastfeeding Research and Advocacy Center has a proud tradition of research excellence and effecting social change and development through its community health programs.
Institutes and Research centers of health are erected to address and solve health challenges, It is on this basis that we have baited the sail to be the first breastfeeding research resource center in Cameroon.
Cameroon breastfeeding rates are low, due to many factors which include lack of support for breastfeeding women, poor maternity leave policies, cultural and social believes, nurses and health providers lack of knowledge, poor hospital policy, and lack of peer support. The Breastfeeding research and advocacy group works with other advocates to increase first and foremost regional breastfeeding rates.
This initiative is unique among existing malnutrition-prevention efforts in its focus on programs and activities that promote early breastfeeding initiation as a primordial factor to influencing infant nutritional and growth status.
BFRA is dedicated to the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding in Cameroon through research and advocacy as part of her efforts in reducing infant mortality. It is formed to be an advocate for breastfeeding at grass root community levels, regional and national levels.
Our mission is to coordinate efforts by organizations, agencies, institutions, and individuals towards the development of strategic plans, policies, and goals for breastfeeding and to see that breastfeeding practices and attitudes are enforced in Cameroon and given priority as an indispensable step to achieving goal four (4) of the Millennium Development Goals. BFRA is also involved in the collection, collation and dissemination of information on globally accepted and indigenously relevant breastfeeding guidelines.
What we do
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1.BFRA collects, collates and disseminate information on breastfeeding science and guidelines.
2.BFRA focuses on collaborative work with grassroots maternal and child health and social service providers.
3.Training of community health workers, or lay health promoters, who make a personal commitment to improving the health of babies and infants.
4.Designing and implementation of mobile Antenatal Clinic models which focus on goal-targeted ANC rather than “traditional ANC”
5.Assist organizations in developing programs that use the power of peer support, incorporating trained community health workers into positions in outreach, breastfeeding education and advocacy programs.
6.BFRA mobilize diverse stakeholders to build for policies and programs that improve breastfeeding practices in some of the most distressed communities in the Cameroon.
7.Offer of scholarships to orphans and girls to study midwifery and nursing in a bid to expanding knowledge of reproductive health and providing each household with a skilled birth attendant (Indicator 5.2 of MDG 5
8. BFRA is also involved in the training of Traditional Birth Attendants in modern and proper child birth practices and the prevention of postpartum hemorrhage in home births
9. We collaborate with international volunteer organizations to assign volunteers in relevant health projects in very remote communities