Sharing Web Resources

I still have not received a newsletter from The Global Fund for Children. The website doesn’t contain many links to other websites. The few that it does have are to corporate sponsors and foundations.  

I thoroughly searched through the section of the website that describes The Global Fund for Children’s impact. In the last year alone they reached 1 million children and hope to bring their total to 10 million by 2015. This means that thousands of children are going to school instead of to work and thousands more are protecting themselves from HIV, escaping the bonds of slavery, and getting the childhood they deserve.

Since 1997, the Global Fund for Children has invested $25.6 million in more than 500 grassroots organizations in 78 countries worldwide. They specialize in maximizing our donors’ investment in the developing world. Here’s how:

• They Find What Works-Program officers use their regional expertise to scout out the most promising organizations operating in marginalized communities. An annual pool of more than 2,000 organizations is whittled down to about 150 that they visit, of those approximately 50 new grantees are selected to be funded.
• They Invest Strategically-They identify innovative groups as they emerge, and over the course of three to six years, help them to grow and thrive using flexible, strategic investments. 
• They Spread the Word-Their first job is to find community-based organizations that are changing children’s lives—then help them grow with management support, training, and leverage. 
• They Check Our Work-They track their grantees’ development. Each of their grantee partners produces measurable outcomes, whether it’s helping more migrant children stay in school, getting more girls to understand the risks of HIV/AIDS, or providing more counseling sessions to child trafficking survivors. 
• They Keep Their Costs Low-Their grantees operate on a shoestring budget—and they follow their model, maximizing every dollar and putting the money where it counts.

The website contains blogs from all the regions. Through these blogs, I found many examples of information that adds to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education. GFC works around the globe with displaced families in places such as Beirut, Lebanon and Dili, Timor-Leste.
In Luhansk, Ukraine GFC partners with the Association of Disabled Young People of the Eastern Donbass, or AMI-East for short which provides educational opportunities for children with disabilities.
In Washington DC, GFC supports the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project (HCPP). The number of children at DC General shelter has reached an astounding 600 up from about 200 children in 2011. HCPP works directly with many of these children, providing weekly activities, healthy snacks, and opportunities to play and learn at DC General and various emergency shelters and transitional housing sites in the District of Columbia.

The new insight I gained doesn’t have to do with the early childhood field but I was very surprised. First, I didn’t know that January was National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. The most astounding fact I found out is that child trafficking is a huge problem in the U.S. It is estimated that 90% of runaways in the U.S. end up trafficked into the commercial sex industry. Over 100,000 children are subject to child trafficking every year in the U.S. alone.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

Since I still have not heard back from my international contacts, I visited Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website. On this website I learned about many initiatives that they are taking part in around the globe. Three areas they are focused on are Brazil, Zambia, and Chile.

In Brazil, the Center is launching Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância which works with Brazilian scholars, policymakers and civil society leaders. Translating and adapting the Center’s existing print and multimedia resources for a Brazilian audience. Some of the work they are doing is to build a scientific agenda and community of scholars around early childhood development, synthesize and translate scientific knowledge for application to social policy, strengthen leadership around early childhood development, communicate the science of child development in the Brazilian cultural context, and translate and adapt the Center’s existing print and multimedia resources for a Brazilian audience. 

In Zambia, the center is working to increase evidence available on early childhood development in sub-Saharan Africa. They are working with the Zambian Ministry of Education, the Examination Council of Zambia, UNICEF, and the University of Zambia to create the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project (ZECDP). Their goal is create a new comprehensive instrument for assessing children’s physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development before and throughout their schooling careers. The ZECDP collaborators hope that the data collected as part of this project, as well as future work in this area, will not only improve understanding of child development in this context but also help identify key interventions towards improved outcomes in a rapidly changing developing world.
In Chile, the center is working on a collaborative program called Un Buen Comienzo (UBC). The goal is to improve early childhood education through teacher professional development with a focus on improving the quality of educational offerings for four-to-six-year-olds, particularly in the area of language development. This project is also designed to intervene in critical health areas that improve school attendance as well as socio-emotional development, and it seeks to involve the children's families in their education. 

The work that is being done in Brazil, Zambia and Chile is all being completed so that equity and excellence of early childhood programs is present. For example, in Brazil the hope is that adapting the Center’s model will create more effective programs and policies. The longitudinal study in Chile has never been carried out in any other country in Latin America and will place Chile at the forefront of demonstrating the impact of a high-quality early education. The work being done in Zambia will be a model for all developing countries.

The NCCP (National Center for Children in Poverty) February update newsletter includes current statistics on low-income children in America. There are fact sheets that breakdown statistics into the following groups: Children under 18 Years, children aged 12 through 17 Years, children aged 6 through 11 Years, children under 6 Years, and children under 3 Years. 

There is also information about the Young Leaders Open House, an event being held in NYC where people can about how Child and Family Poverty in America affects us all, and what is being done about it in the research and policy arenas.

Finally, the newsletter asks for people to give what they can to the NCCP Annual Fund.

While checking out their Facebook page, I noticed that NCCP had shared a link that was very relevant to me. It was a link to the Michigan Kids Count report: Rural areas also face child poverty, well-being issues. This is relevant to me as I teach in a rural district in Michigan that is one of the most poverty- stricken in the state.

Childhood poverty in India

Since I still have not heard back from those international professionals I attempted to contact, I selected to learn about childhood poverty in India from http://www.childhoodpoverty.org.   Here are some of the insights that I learned about India.

In India, drought and environmental deterioration have significantly undermined livelihoods and exacerbated poverty.   Responses to these contribute to poverty cycles that include pressures on children to work, undermining their education and health.   Children from 10-15 percent of households migrate for work, usually with parents, but sometimes alone.   Income from migrant children's work constituted up to 45 percent of the poorest households' income.  India accounts for 20 percent of the world's out-of-school children.  It has the largest numbers of working children in the world, with nearly a third of children below 16 years working.

The focus in India is to get the children from poor families into primary schools, increase the retention rate so that more children finish primary grades, and upgrade the quality of the schooling they receive.  In health, the country is facing high rates of communicable diseases, malnutrition, and maternal and perinatal illnesses, predominantly among poor people.  Almost half of all children under the age of five are malnourished and 34 percent of new-borns are significantly underweight.

Gender biases limit girls' life chances.  The cycle of disadvantage starts at birth and continues through childhood to motherhood and the next generation.  It is reflected in the inferior health and educational status of women, the high maternal mortality rate, the neglect of the girl child, the declining sex ratio, and girl's lower rates of school enrolment and subsequent higher participation in the child labor force.

These insights have shown me that poverty around the world looks very different.  In the United States, we have laws limiting child workers, requiring school attendance, and protecting gender equality.

THE GLOBAL FUND FOR CHILDREN

The Global Fund for Children (https://www.globalfundforchildren.org) works to transform the lives of children on the edges of society—trafficked children, refugees, child laborers—and help them regain their rights and pursue their dreams.  Since 1997, they’ve reached 8 million children worldwide.

They find and invest in grassroots organizations that enable the most vulnerable children in their communities to thrive.   Their model can be summarized in three steps: scout (seeking out organizations that serve the most marginalized children in the world), support (they invest in undercapitalized organizations that provide critical services to vulnerable children), and strengthen (through management assistance, capacity building, and networking opportunities to help them become sustainable resources in their communities).

In a recent blog “Voices from Hay al-Gharbeh” By Emmanuel Otoo on December 26th, 2012, the author discusses poverty in Lebanon.  It is estimated that 8 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty while an additional 28 percent are considered below the poverty line.  There are also huge disparities in poverty demographics, with a heavy concentration of poverty in certain regions and increased poverty in urban areas, especially around large cities like Beirut.

Tahaddi, a GFC partner, works to address these challenges by providing children and women in Hay al-Gharbeh, a shantytown in Beirut, with access to quality education, psychosocial support, and basic health services. The children are given the opportunity to learn and play in a safe environment and are guided and socialized to become productive and responsible adults.

The author visited and spent time with over 100 vulnerable boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 16 who are receiving various forms of support from Tahaddi. The children quizzed him about the United States and taught him key words in Arabic.  They shared their dreams and aspirations with the author and shared that they are receiving the needed guidance from Tahaddi to enable them to achieve their dreams.  One 9-year-old girl said that when she grows up, she wants to help children who are sick to be well and those who are hungry to have food. When asked why, she said, “Sickness and hunger make children unhappy, and so I want to do that to make sure children are happy all the time.”

Tahaddi’s strategy centers on providing support to vulnerable children and youth affected by conflict and poverty, including those with disabilities. The organization currently serves over 110 beneficiaries. Tahaddi provides community sensitization on the rights of children, supports families in obtaining the legal documentation necessary to access basic amenities, and operates social inclusion, mentorship, youth empowerment, and enterprise and livelihood programs.

GFC selects grantee partners such as Tahaddi based on their demonstrated potential to actively engage their communities and find sustainable solutions to the issues facing vulnerable children and youth. They serve as a resource for these grassroots organizations and, through their financial investment and other services, help to strengthen the capacity of their partners to enable them to continue addressing emerging issues long after their support ends.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

To locate and establish contact with early childhood professionals outside the United States, I visited the UNICEF website and contacted local representatives in New Zealand and Bolivia.  I have always been interested in New Zealand and Australia and decided on Bolivia because one of my current students was born in Bolivia (her mother is a native) and they still have many family members there.  I thought this relationship could provide me with additional resources/information on the region.  I have not heard back from either e-mail yet and may have to contact others if I don't hear back soon.

Because of my ancestry, I was interested to see what the European Early Childhood Education Research Association website had to offer.  While the website contains lots of research papers, it doesn't really discuss current issues or much as far as "hands-on" work.  I next checked out the Center for Child Care Workforce website.  This is a very interesting website for professionals in the early childhood field.  They discuss such topics as wage issues, professional development, and ways to make early childhood professionals voices heard.  This still wasn't exactly what I was looking for, so I checked out The Global Fund for Children's website for an international look at early childhood.  When explaining what they do, they said, "we transform the lives of children on the edges of society—trafficked children, refugees, child laborers—and help them regain their rights and pursue their dreams.  In other words, we do all we can to let kids be kids—no matter what their circumstances."  This was something that definately interested me and I can't wait to dig further into their work!

My Supports

Some of the emotional supports that I have in my life include my boyfriend and his children. They show me love and affection when I’m down, they laugh with me, and they’re happy for me when something good happens to me. My friends also provide emotional support in that they listen to my issues, share a laugh with me, and are happy when things are good. My parents show their support by demonstrating that they are proud of my accomplishments. Finally, my dogs provide me love no matter what I say or do.

One of the biggest practical supports in my life is my associate teacher. She helps me plan for our classroom, supports decisions that I make, and offers helpful suggestions. Money is a practical support in that it allows me to meet my needs and some of my wants. Technology such as phones and computers support me to communicate with others and get information that I need. My boyfriend and his daughters support me because they help around the house such as getting themselves dressed, helping with dinner, picking up after themselves, etc. I don’t feel that I require much physical support. The only thing I could think of was my car which gives me the freedom to get me where I need and want to go. 

The benefit of these supports is that they help me meet all my needs and wants. If I didn’t have these supports, my life would be extremely difficult. I wouldn’t be able to do my job as effectively as I do now. If I didn’t have money, I wouldn’t have my house or my dogs. If my family and friends weren’t part of my support system, I would not have made it through college, and probably not even through high school. 

If I were blind, my supports would change dramatically. Some of the supports I have in my life would be unnecessary while others would become more necessary. I imagine that my emotional supports would remain the same. However, my practical and physical supports would be very different. I would have to lean much more on my associate teacher for feedback on what the students are doing and I would not be able to complete my observations of the students in the same way. I would have to rely much more on listening to the children. I wouldn’t be able to use computers like I do now and would need more support around the house from my boyfriend and his daughters. I would require the assistance of a Seeing Eye dog in order to maintain the same amount of freedom that I experience now. If I didn’t have these supports, I would not be able to work and therefore would not have the monetary support that I have now.