Australia and New Zealand Babywearing Week is growing each year since its debut in 2010. Founded by ‘Babes in Arms’, sponsored by ERGObaby and supported by both national and local babywearing groups, we have been able to spread the joy of babywearing further and further.  The quality of entries in our Award categories this year was outstanding and illustrated exactly how babywearing can open up a world of possibilities to parents. From Babywearing Olympics to a Flash Mob dance….a Marsupial picnic and a Swap Meet, the range of creative and exciting events was just fabulous. We even saw the WA group pull together an event in under 3 days! Well done!

We have so many exciting plans for 2012 and are currently working on it right now to make it BIGGER and to provide groups with even more support. Of course, Award categories will be on offer again with cash grants for community groups or charities as nominated by the babywearing group. If you would like to provide any suggestions, drop us a line on the Australia New Zealand Babywearing Week Facebook page. We would love to hear from you.

And now, finally…..the Awards! We know you have been restless to know which group took out each Award. So without further ado……

This was one of our closest Award categories. The Hunter Home and Natural Birth Support group *just* slid into first place with the smallest of margins! Congratulations!

The $1000 community grant will be going towards the nominated charity/community group: Hunter Home and Natural Birth Support – a not for profit voluteer run community support group for women and families wanting more information on home and natural birth locally.  We look forwarding to hearing how the Award is used to support the group over the next three months – so watch our space for updates.

Secondly, a ‘People’s Choice’ Award  includes a $500 community grant to support the event’s nominated charity. We handed this one over to our Facebook community to help us decide which group was the most creative. Hundreds upon hundreds of people voted…..and one particular group was a clear winner.

Congratulations to Skye Bogdanovic and the Adelaide Marsupial Babywearing Picnic participants. $500 will be heading to your nominated charity/community group: The Birth Place.

This year sees the introduction of the new ‘Media Attention’ Award for those who are successful in gaining the media’s attention to cover their babywearing event. We saw a number of groups successfully gain media attention in newsprint, magazines, blogs and radio. This year we have awarded the Media Attention Award to the Babywearing Swapmeet – Brisbane who gained media coverage for their event through a radio interview and blog coverage (20,000 hits per month).

This year, the  prize for the  ‘ERGObaby Group Hug’  Award (awarded to the  group that gathers the most number of ERGObaby wearers and photographs them altogether) was FREE Teething Pads and a Standard Front Pouch to match the entrants ERGObaby carrier (total value $53.95 RRP). Almost every group entered!

Congratulations to the Hunter Home and Natural Birth Support group who *again* slid into first place! Thanks to ERGObaby we will be awarding each of your ERGObaby wearing mummas their prizes shortly.

Babes in Arms will be in contact with each event organiser shortly to organise Awards.

Thanks to all who contributed this year and congratulations on a very successful Australia & NZ Babywearing Week 2011.