Re: [guadec-list] GUADEC baby friendliness level

[meg ford <megford gnome org>]

On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 10:47 PM, Karen Sandler <karen gnome org> wrote:

On Tue, April 2, 2013 6:58 pm, Gil Forcada wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Our kid is still not born (anytime soon!) but we kind of think about
> going to GUADEC, so the subject is obviously something that will matter
> for us to decide if our kid is ready for a GUADEC or not :)
>
> So things like accommodation for the three of us, proper toilets on the
> venue for changing diapers and so on would be nice.
>
> Are there going to be any other parents *with* kids there? Karen? :)

I'm not going to be bringing the baby this time, but I think this is an
important issue to address - thanks for raising it!

I feel a bit strange sharing this, but I've attended a couple of
conferences without my baby and needed to find someplace to pump, and it's
been really tough. It would be great to have some clean private space
allocated where anyone in that situation (or breastfeeding, of course) can
go if they need it.  Or at least make it known that a space would be made
available on request. I felt somewhat marginalized from the rest of the
conferences to not to mention that spending time in bathroom stalls is
really not ideal (especially when they aren't very nice or clean). We
might also want to specify that breastfeeding in the conference is welcome
for those who choose to.  Given that our percentages of women are still
pretty low (though better than they were), I doubt this impacts many women
at any given conference but it would send a nice message as a policy.

The Art Institute of Chicago has a nice private space that contains a chair for breastfeeding/pumping  and a changing table. It's in an area that's accessible to both parents, so either parent can do feeding and changing. It would be nice if we had a space like that set aside at conferences.

Meg Ford

More specific to your question, AdaCamp goes out of its way to have
limited childcare services, that you can reserve in advance (for only a
small number of children). We might want to consider doing something like
that.

Additionally, we should consider providing GNOME related activities for
children, perhaps as local outreach? Getting kids interested in free
software is also an important goal.

I've heard other GNOME parents wish there was some way they could bring
their kids.

Perhaps we can discuss this at tomorrow's meeting?
karen


> Cheers,
> --
> Gil Forcada
>
> [ca] guifi.net - una xarxa lliure que no para de créixer

> [en] guifi.net - a non-stopping free network
> bloc: http://gil.badall.net
> planet: http://planet.guifi.net
>
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