 | |
| Founded | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Jill Youse, Founder and Educational Director |
| Focus | Greater Minnesota |
| Location | |
Area served | Africa |
Key people | Laura Wylie, Board Chair |
| Website | www.breastmilkproject.org No longer active |
The International Breast Milk Project is a non-profit organization that solicits donations of human milk and provides the milk to needy infants. [1] [2] [3] [4]
In April 2006 founder Jill Youse searched for ways to donate breast milk and stumbled across an orphanage in Durban, South Africa, looking for donor milk to provide for their HIV positive infants. Soon after she was featured in a local newspaper, and other mothers began contacting her to find ways to donate their milk. As more mothers became involved, more articles were produced which lead to Oprah Winfrey and others. After the wide exposure provided by Oprah and Charles Gibson at ABC World News, IBMP partnered with Prolacta Bioscience, who packaged the donated milk, and Quick International Courier, who transports and ships the milk to Africa. IBMP has provided over a half million ounces of breast milk, and granted $140,000 towards health care in Africa.
One of the top goals of IBMP is to provide donor milk to malnourished, orphaned, or diseased infants in South Africa. Of the half a million ounces of donor milk provided by IBMP donors, 162,665 has gone to infants in need in Africa. IBMP partners with Milk Banks in Africa, where local donors are few, to provide milk to infants.
In addition to providing donor milk, IBMP has granted over $173,000 for health care in Africa, including creating and sustaining milk banks. Along with providing donor milk, it is important to provide sustainable milk bank to store donations.
Along with working with Prolacta Bioscience to ensure the safety and quality of the donated milk, IBMP received the highest Charities Review Council Review indication that it meets all of the council's Accountability Standards. IBMP is also listed on the online Giving Guide of Smart Giver's Network. Transportation of the donor milk is provided by Quick International. Social Venture Partners is also a supporter of IBMP.
A donation is a gift for charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donation may satisfy medical needs such as blood or organs for transplant.
Breast milk or mother's milk is milk produced by the mammary glands in the breast of human females. Breast milk is the primary source of nutrition for newborn infants, comprising fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and a varying composition of minerals and vitamins. Breast milk also contains substances that help protect an infant against infection and inflammation, such as symbiotic bacteria and other microorganisms and immunoglobulin A, whilst also contributing to the healthy development of the infant's immune system and gut microbiome.
Egg donation is the process by which a woman donates eggs to enable another woman to conceive as part of an assisted reproduction treatment or for biomedical research. For assisted reproduction purposes, egg donation typically involves in vitro fertilization technology, with the eggs being fertilized in the laboratory; more rarely, unfertilized eggs may be frozen and stored for later use. Egg donation is a third-party reproduction as part of assisted reproductive technology.
Children International is a global nonprofit humanitarian organization that helps children break the cycle of poverty. It addresses children’s critical needs through early intervention and regular interaction in community centers. The goal is to help children overcome the effects of poverty, support their education, and prepare youth to contribute to society.
The North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) is a social benefit organization located in Plano, Texas. The organization distributes donated, purchased and prepared foods through a network of nearly 1,000 feeding programs and 400 Partner Agencies in 13 North Texas counties. The NTFB supports the nutritional needs of children, seniors, and families through education, advocacy and strategic partnerships.
The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) is a registered UK charity that operates in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Canada. It works with companies, private philanthropists, regular donors, fellow foundations, governments, charities and not-for-profit enterprises to enable them to give more. Its stated purpose is to “accelerate progress in society towards a fair and sustainable future for all.”
A human milk bank is "a service which collects, screens, processes, and dispenses by prescription human milk donated by nursing mothers who are not biologically related to the recipient infant". As of November 2019, there are 28 milk banks in North America that are members of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA). They are usually housed in hospitals, although some are free standing. Members of HMBANA follow the annually revised "Guidelines for the Establishment and Operation of a Donor Human Milk Bank" which include protocols for soliciting donors and collecting, processing, and distributing the milk. In addition, some states have required standards for donor human milk banks. However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), states that "the FDA has not been involved in establishing these voluntary guidelines or state standards." Some of these protocols are described below.
Humanity First is an international charity that provides disaster relief and long term development assistance to vulnerable communities in 52 countries across 6 continents. The organisation is run by volunteers with diverse skillsets across the world and has access to thousands of extra volunteers worldwide. Volunteer staff in all areas often pay their own expenses to support the international projects.
King Charles III Charitable Fund (KCCF), formerly known as The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund, is a charity that seeks to improve communities in the UK and throughout the world through grant giving and occasionally launches activities. It awards approximately £5 million to a range of charitable causes annually. The fund was founded by King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, in 1979, and its change in name was announced as part of King Charles III's accession, along with new titles of the other charitable organizations The King's Trust and The King's Foundation.
Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process where breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommend that breastfeeding begin within the first hour of a baby's birth and continue as the baby wants. Health organizations, including the WHO, recommend breastfeeding exclusively for six months. This means that no other foods or drinks, other than vitamin D, are typically given. The WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 years and beyond. Of the 135 million babies born every year, only 42% are breastfed within the first hour of life, only 38% of mothers practice exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months, and 58% of mothers continue breastfeeding up to the age of two years and beyond.
Sperm donation is the provision by a man of his sperm with the intention that it be used in the artificial insemination or other "fertility treatment" of one or more women who are not his sexual partners in order that they may become pregnant by him. Where pregnancies go to full term, the sperm donor will be the biological father of every baby born from his donations. The man is known as a sperm donor and the sperm he provides is known as "donor sperm" because the intention is that the man will give up all legal rights to any child produced from his sperm, and will not be the legal father. Sperm donation may also be to known as "semen donation".
Starfish Greathearts Foundation is an international non-governmental organisation formed in 2001 to help orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa. Its mission is to help make a difference in the lives of such children via community-based projects working at grassroots level. This enables individual communities to develop their own solutions to fight the challenges they come across. As of January 2022, Starfish projects have reached more than 220,000 children in 110 communities across South Africa.</ref> Starfish Greathearts Foundation.
A human milk bank, breast milk bank or lactarium is a service that collects, screens, processes, pasteurizes, and dispenses by prescription human milk donated by nursing mothers who are not biologically related to the recipient infant. The optimum nutrition for newborn infants is breast milk for at least the first 6 months of life. For women who are unable to breast feed or produce enough milk, pasteurized donor breast milk may be an effective approach to feeding. Breast milk supplied by a woman other than the baby's mother that is not pasteurized and informal breast milk sharing is associated with a risk of transmitting bacteria and viruses from the donor mother to the baby and is not considered a safe alternative. If pasteurized donor breast milk is not available, commercial formula is suggested as a second alternative.
The humanitarian responses by non-governmental organizations to the 2010 Haiti earthquake included many organisations, such as international, religious, and regionally based NGOs, which immediately pledged support in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Besides a large multi-contingency contribution by national governments, NGOs contributed significantly to both on-the-ground rescue efforts and external solicitation of aid for the rescue efforts.
The Lunchbox Fund is a non-profit organization providing a daily meal for orphaned and vulnerable school children in township and rural areas of South Africa. The organization was founded by South African model Topaz Page-Green.
Cradles to Crayons® (C2C®) is a non-profit organization that provides free clothes and other basic needs such as shoes, diapers, coats, and backpacks with school supplies to children living in homeless, poverty, and low-income situations for free. Cradles to Crayons began with its first Giving Factory® warehouse in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 2002. Cradles to Crayons expanded to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2006 and Chicago, Illinois, in 2016. In 2021, Cradles to Crayons launched its national online clothing donation platform Giving Factory Direct, serving children in NYC and San Francisco with direct donations from across the United States. Cradles to Crayons partners with corporations, community groups, service organizations, media outlets, sports teams, and other organizations in Chicagoland, Greater Philadelphia, Massachusetts, NYC, San Francisco, and across the U.S. Supporters donate clothing to clothes donation boxes. Then Cradles to Crayons volunteers sort and package the donations and provide them to children in need of clothing, shoes, diapers, and school supplies.
GlobalGiving is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in the United States that provides a global crowdfunding platform for grassroots charitable projects. Since 2002, more than 1.6 million donors on GlobalGiving have donated more than $750 million to support more than 33,000 projects in 175 countries.
BAPS Charities is an international, religious, charitable organization that originates from the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) with a focus on serving society. This focus on service to society is stated in the organization's vision, that "every individual deserves the right to a peaceful, dignified, and healthy way of life. And by improving the quality of life of the individual, we are bettering families, communities, our world, and our future." BAPS Charities carries out this vision through a range of programs addressing health, education, the environment, and natural disaster recovery. The organization's worldwide activities are funded through donations and are led by a community of over 55,000 volunteers who are mostly members of BAPS. The volunteers work with local communities and other charities and the organization's activities are mainly based out of their mandirs.
The Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA) is a not-for-profit organization that accredits nonprofit milk banks in the United States and Canada, produces the standards and guidelines for donated breast milk in North America, and promotes lactation and breast feeding. The organization was founded in 1985. As of 2022, it has thirty-one member milk banks, including twenty-eight in the US and three in Canada. HMBANA is accredited by the US FDA, and is funded by membership dues and donations.
Elisabeth Anderson Sierra is an American woman who holds the Guinness World Record for the largest individual donation of breast milk.