Three ways governments encourage breastfeeding at work

Michael Hobbes details the rise and fall of small learning communities in the early 2000s to tell the story of a larger trend in American education reform. "The decisive factor isn't the Big Idea itself--splitting up dropout factories floor by floor--but the millions of little ideas that hold it together," Hobbes notes. He uses this one trend to discuss common denominators for student success and why schools have repeatedly failed to effectively scale promising solutions: "Every successive Big Idea in education reform has ended up in the same place. It works for one school and doesn't for another."

In Nepal, a revolutionary volunteer program called the “Female Community Health Volunteers” has led the country to drastically decline the number of women that die giving childbirth. Over 50,000 volunteers look after pregnant women and inform them of how to take care of themselves. “Between 1991 and 2011, it has seen an 80% decline in the number of women dying in pregnancy, during labour and after childbirth.”

Singapore maintains its state of cleanliness through fines, public education, and an army of low-paid cleaners. Fifty years ago, the Keep Singapore Clean campaign was the first time the government used fines as a method of social control. Now that the city is wealthier, the fines aren’t as effective. Singaporeans rely on cleaners to do the majority of the work.

Throughout rural parts of Nigeria, health care services are often out of reach, putting pregnant women at risk of undergoing an unsafe childbirth experience. Although not without limitations, training women in these areas to act as Traditional Birth Attendants helps fill a small portion of the health equity gap by offering safe-birthing education as well as medical toolkits.

Fifty years ago, Ohio's Cuyahoga River was filthy, so much so that an infamous fire had to help spark the conversation around water pollution and cleanliness. Now, the river is making a comeback after the introduction of federal level legislation and community efforts to make the river cleaner and safer.

Big money has big lobbyists - but small lobbyists can also bring about big changes. Groups like Results and the Citizens Climate Lobby train ordinary people to approach and make arguments to politicians and journalists.

A city-sanctioned program allows people to camp on a corner in Chattanooga, despite it being illegal statewide. The safety and stability allow residents to focus on improving their economic situations in order to find stable housing.

The Center for Social Value and Early Childhood Development works to fight the harmful traditional practices of female genital mutilation by sending teams to visit communities and engage with community and religious leaders to raise awareness of the harmful effects of the practice. Since forming, their efforts have prevented over 500 female circumcisions.

The impoverished communities in Paris had high unemployment for adults and youth. The French government has offered financial incentives to hire people from the banlieues. Talents de Cités, a governmental program, offers cash prizes to young entrepreneurs.

Non-pneumatic Anti-shock Garments (NASG) are emergency garments used during cases of post-partum hemorrhage that save women’s lives by compressing blood vessels to reduce excessive blood loss. Currently, there are 498 NASGs distributed across several counties and the use of the garment has resulted in a 38% reduction in the maternal mortality rate.