Due to my tardiness in making contact with the Director of the Liberty Children’s Home in Belize I have not received a reply to my communication. The other contact I made with the Canadian Child Care Foundation let me know she would do her best to maintain contact with me as this is a very busy time for her; I am currently awaiting her reply to my questions regarding the quality of care in early learning environments and teachers qualifications in one of the most educated cities in Canada; Ottowa. In the interim, while I am waiting to hear from my global contacts I have investigated the Global World Initiative website.
As I navigated through the Global World Initiative website found at http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/ the first document to catch my eye was the Global Children’s Initiative Fact Sheet: Mission and Activities. The document describes the participation in four activities, Early Childhood Development; Child Mental Health; Children in Crisis and Conflict Situations and Building Broader, More Diverse Leadership Capacity in Research and Policy. The Global Children’s Initiative is focusing on the quality of early learning environments worldwide, measuring child outcomes and using malaria control strategies in Zambia, and supporting an increase in preschool quality in Chile.
To address child mental health the initiative is assessment mental health services in China, supporting family-based strategies in Rwanda to empower families of children infected with HIV/AIDS, and addressing child maltreatment and mental health in three Caribbean nations; Barbados, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. This last child health activity supports my interest as I have reached out to the Liberty Children’s Home in Belize. Belize currently has the highest number of child abuse incidents in the Caribbean. It is understandable why the Global Children’s Initiative is focusing energies in the Caribbean because “in Latin American and the Caribbean, 40 million children under 15 years of age suffer violence, abuse and neglect in the family, the school, the community and the street” (2009, p. 9 http://www.eclac.org/dds/noticias/desafios/0/37890/Challenges9-cepal-unicef.pdf)
To address the Children in Crisis the initiative is supporting survey activities in Chile and Haiti to determine child outcomes as a result of the most recent earthquake and using science to education policy makers on the effects of acute malnutrition on brain development.
To secure a more diverse leadership capacity, the initiative has developed activities to provide training for researchers, policy makers and educators so we can educate and advocate on a local level using one voice packed with the latest research on how positive early relationships support brain development with the ultimate outcomes of improved health, behavior and learning throughout life.
Patricia,
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting about the Global Children's Initiative for Latin American and Caribbean countries. Most Americans think of the Caribbean as a wonderful vacation spot and that the citizens there are living it up. Little is really known about how many children are hungry and not living in healthy situations.
Tina
I, too, have struggled with making contact with international early childhood professionals. Thank you for sharing information about the Global Children's Initiative website. I explored this website as well for my blog assignment this week but did not find all of the nooks and cranny's that you found. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteCaitlyn