Starter Kit. Idea 442 of 500. Cluster 23
Breastfeeding rooms and creches sold to the factories as a service, since the law asks for them
The mechanism, from the book
The single largest unused asset in the country is sitting at home, and the reasons are practical, not attitude.
The first step
Visit the HR managers at three factories with large female workforces and ask how they meet the law on nursing mothers now, and how many trained women they lose after maternity. Offer to fit, equip and run a lactation room and creche as a monthly service. The proof is one factory that asks for a written price.
- Who pays first
- A factory HR manager losing trained women after maternity, who pays because keeping one experienced worker costs less than hiring and training a new one.
- What leaves today
- Factories lose trained women at the birth of a child; a creche keeps their skill in the workforce and saves the cost of training again.
Ask first
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what a nursing room at a workplace must have to be clean and safe.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how to register a business that fits and runs these rooms for factories.
Check before you spend
Confirm with each factory what the law asks of it for nursing mothers, the hygiene standard for the room, and who is responsible for running it.
Find out these three numbers
- How many trained women does a factory lose after maternity each year?
- What does it cost the factory to replace one of them?
- What does fitting and running one room cost a month?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.