I have been in Cape Town for 17 of these years as a Leader of the Durbanville Group. In this beautiful part of South Africa, we have eight active Leaders, three Leader Applicants and three Groups to cover as wide an area as possible. The Groups have changed in structure over the years and it is interesting to see how they are presently functioning. The Southern Suburbs Group meets on Friday afternoons because the Leader works as a school librarian during the day. The Tableview and Durbanville Groups hold morning meetings and are not as busy.
Many mothers return to work so attendance is lower.
Recently at the Durbanville Group meeting, three Leaders, one Leader Applicant and four mothers attended. This is something of an imbalance and we are very aware of the need to do some advertising within the local community and in the newspapers. Some mothers choose to go to these clinics, which charge a fee and offer inoculations and other well-baby services. Bottle-feeding advice is also offered at these clinics that are mainly connected to local hospitals. Test-weighing is routinely performed at every visit and the course of breastfeeding is plotted based on these results.