WUNRN

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Via Huairou Commission

http://www.huairou.org/

MOTHERS' PRAM PUSHING SUCCESSFUL PUBLICITY EVENT

FOR FAMILY URBAN SOCIAL ISSUES - EUROPE

„Pram Pushing“ is a Mother Center publicity event created by the Union of Slovak Mother Centers who set a first Guinness Record on Mothers Day in 2004 as a way to raise awareness for the needs of parents and children in urban environments. The event was repeated in Slovakia in 2005, when 108 prams were pushed inside one hour on a one mile stretch. The public success and great family fun generated by this action inspired Mother Centers in other countries and this year the Mother Center International Network mine and their national and regional Mother Center network members upscaled the event to an international level involving 18 locations and 7 countries inside their network.

One day before Mother’s Day, on May 13^th  2006. from 16 – 17 h grassroots women and their families across Europe came out to “Move the pram and move the world”.  2 120 prams were pushed simultaneously inside one hour on a one mile walk by Mother Center participants from Austria, Bosnia, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy,  Slovakia, and The Netherlands, celebrating the growing movement of Mother Centers and the growing self confidence of mothers to the right to family friendly cities. With this turnout mine broke the record formerly held by the Union of Slovak Mother Centers.

The pram pushers were supported by many more who joined them for this event to claim public space for families. In Zavidovici for instance, a small provincial town in Bosnia, the 34 participants of the local Mother Center “Plamen”, who pushed the pram around the 1 mile stretch leading to their newly acquired Mother Center premises, were joined by 300 participants from Zavidovici as well as all the way from the capital city Sarajevo in this demonstration of civic activity, still a very rare phenomenon in post war Bosnia.

The Stuttgart organiser Muetterforum Baden Wuerttemberg complimented the 131 participants pushing prams with children with prams not containing children but life size posters stating some of the reasons why many prams stay empty in current society: the lack of compatibility of work and family, the isolation of mothers, the poverty risk of single parents, the lack of welcoming structures in public life for children and families.

The greatest turnout to Move the pram, move the world was in Slovakia, the country where the idea originated, contributing with over one thousand participants to half of the record making count. They were joined by their Minister for Social Matters, Family and Work, who pushed a pram in front row in the historical city center at the Bratislava mile walk.

The Mother Center Guinness Record event received a lot of publicity, with both local and national media, newspapers, radio programs as well as the regional and national news on TV covering the events in all the 7 countries involved.

Contacts:

www.mine.cc

International Pram Pushing Campaign Coordinator:

Union of Slovak Mother Centers Elena Bakosova,

elena@materskecentra.sk

www.materskecentra.sk