What's happening at Human Milk HQ?
March 2023
We're very, very delighted to be part of an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection museum in London UK all about milk, opening on March 30th till October 2023. You'll be able to find some of our Human Milk Clothing products in their shop.
It's not a revolutionary act to include human milk in the expo, yet it's an unusual one all the same. 'Milk' is traditionally thought of in our culture as a food group, dairy; usually cow's milk, or possibly goat's, and more recently oat, soya and other vegan alternatives.
While breastmilk is seldom thought of as simply being us humans' first food. An inspired move by the museum.
August 26th 2022
We are truly proud to have been accepted as a member of the UK Organisation for Responsible Businesses.
The Organisation for Responsible Businesses is a national membership organisation with a vision of a better way of doing business: a way that is good for business AND a better world.
Our membership reflects all the areas in which we are committed to putting people and planet first, from our core remit of supporting and protecting breastfeeding, to the sustainable textiles we use for our Human Milk clothing, ecologically sound printing processes, our rejection of plastic in favour of renewable and biodegradable materials, to our super flexible way of working that puts our families centre stage.
We're sorry to announce that we did not manage to raise enough to go ahead with the mural of Sun Bloom. We raised £1199 of the £5000 needed.
We're so so thankful to all of you who pledged and we're sorry!!
We appreciate that these are hard and uncertain times and are grateful to everyone who supported this idea at this crazy time in history.
We have however issued refunds to everyone who donated as the amount raised is not enough to go ahead with any iteration of this project.
Not every idea is a winner, or launched at the right time ❤️
We'll of course continue our work to spread empowering knowledge and support to all mothers and their families in all the ways we can.
Thank you again to all of you for your faith and enjoy our Sun Bloom podcasts, inspired by the image and her censorship!
Onwards and upwards!
Sun Bloom by Chloe Trayhurn
June 26th 2022
Our Sun Bloom video podcasts are live!
The Sun Bloom Conversations is a series of conversations from around the world inspired by the censorship on social media of the image by Chloe Trayhurn of a breastfeeding mother as "sexually provocative adult content".
The podcasts will open up space to talk it out, explore the reasons for the censorship - which go well beyond social media - how we feel about it, and the real world results of it. We'll rage and laugh and grieve and explore through various lenses, always bringing the focus back onto how incredible women's bodies really are and what we can do to bring ownership of our bodies back to ourselves.
Big, 3 storey high news
April 10th 2022.
Chloe Trayhurn's painting Sun Bloom, which we have printed onto stunning scarves in collaboration with Chloe has been censored by Facebook as "sexually suggestive adult content", and we've had rather enough.
We will be fundraising to paint her on a large Bristol wall in collaboration with Internationally renowned graffiti Artist Hazard One, to signal to mothers everywhere that they are brilliant
and that there is community and empowering knowledge right here for them.
Let's bring the focus away from shaming women and their bodies and back onto just how remarkable women and their bodies actually are.
Human Milk will donate funds and time covering project management, production, PR, graphic design and event management, photographer Jennie Corcoran is donating her time, and we will be crowdfunding the rest very shortly!
A conversation between Wisdom Blogs Founder Liza K Collins MD and our Founder Claire Tchaikowski.
"Imagine if everywhere we went [if we're struggling with breastfeeding], people said 'Ok, we need to help you, because we know how important this is both for the next generation and also for you.' and within a day you could be seen by people who get it"
Human Milk in Juno Magazine
JUNO Magazine's new Spring 2021 issue features 3 pages on human milk, and Human Milk! Our Founder Claire explores the contents of our milk and has a bit of a rant, calling for mothers and breastfeeding support organisations to get the recognition, social framework and funding they need for breastfeeding to really succeed.
The article includes a photo of gorgeous Dede and her tiny human. Thank you Dede!
You can subscribe to Juno here.
It's a beautiful publication about sustainability, community and parenting.
Thank you Juno!
We Won a leading UK sustainability award!
Watch the video below
Introducing
our new website
It has arrived. Our new website! Well, you know this, because you're on it... Have a look around, with new features and information, there's a lot to drink in.
It was sort of accidentally built by Claire, after we wondered how hard it would be to re-build our site on a new platform that meant we could update it regularly without a PhD in coding. 2 weeks down a rabbit hole, with graphics by our designer Lisa and some last minute tech help from our über geek Dan, et voilà! It's nice to meet you.
New Partner
We're excited to announce our partnership with Forever Cacao, a family business producing Award Winning Chocolate from ethically sourced Peruvian Ashaninka Cacao.
10p per pack of Coconut Milk Chocolate will go to Human Milk CIC.
Minimally processed in Wales from all natural ingredients. Vegan friendly and free from gluten, dairy, soya and palm oil. No refined sugar. Handmade and wrapped in plastic free packaging... We love it!!
P.E.A. Awards
We have been shortlisted for the 'People. Environment. Achievement.' Awards in the Nature and Vegan categories!
The P.E.A. Awards are the UK's leading sustainability awards, and we are absolutely delighted.
The event takes place on Friday Nov 20th 2020, and you can register free for the virtual event.
Eva Fernandes joins us as a Director
Eva joined Human Milk CIC on May 29th 2020. She brings a wealth of experience in building businesses and bringing lasting, equitable change to people's lives.
Eva's care for parents and infants goes back a long way. She was the Founder of Born; Bristol's first ethical parent & baby store in 2000, and The Baby Bank; a thriving charity that provides families in need with the essentials to care for their new babies.
Eva and Claire first met in 2012 and collaborated on a first event, Bristol Food Connections 'Human Milk, our Perfect First Food' in 2015. Eva was there to help at the advert shoot and launch, made our Human Milk event at Colston Hall in June 2019 happen, and it's with huge pride that we welcome her officially to the company.
We teamed up with Ergobaby to talk about oxytocin, and why holding your baby close works so well for breastfeeding.