Getting to Know My International Contacts

                                                                       By Lisa Martin

My pen pal, Delfina Mitchell, has been extremely busy of late, so I have no real updates on things at Liberty Children’s Home, other than their continued efforts to raise funds. However, I have been reading about other early childhood initiatives taking place on the global scene. The World Forum has one on a subject close to my heart – inclusion. They have developed a permanent initiative on the inclusion of children with special needs based on information provided by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). According to the UNESCO policy brief on Early Childhood (2009):

“Worldwide, there are about 650 million persons with disabilities. This accounts for 10% of the global population, and constitutes more than 20% of the world’s poorest people. Children with disabilities experience stigma from birth and are more prone to exclusion, concealment, abandonment, institutionalization, and abuse. Mortality rates among children with disabilities are 80%, even in countries where under-five mortality has declined below 20%. Strikingly, 98% of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school.”

Needless to say, I found this information extremely depressing and heart breaking. Equity and excellence cannot exist in the absence of inclusion. I then went over to the Center for the Developing Child website and checked out their global initiatives and was immediately filled with a sense of hope again as they discussed the “moral responsibility to meet the needs of all children and a critical investment in the roots of economic productivity, positive health outcomes, and strong civil society in all nations, from the poorest to the most affluent” (Center for the Developing Child, 2012). I enjoyed reading about the improvement of early education in Chile through professional development. After all we owe it to all children to provide them with well qualified early education professionals. Teacher training and education is a key cause of educational inequality, when it should be a major factor in equity and excellence.

The care of children during and after war and other catastrophes is also of interest to me, so I listened to the podcasts of Maysoun Chehab, the Regional Early Childhood Care and Development Program Coordinator at the Arab Resource Collective (ARC), a not-for-profit non-governmental organization based in Beirut, Lebanon. She coordinates with and trains early childhood professionals in best practices in areas of conflict like Syria and Egypt. They provide psychosocial interventions and support to children and families post conflict. I was quite impressed with Ms. Chehab and her dedication, realizing the challenges she must face and the reward she must gain each time she positively impacts the life of a child and their family.

Center for the Developing Child. (2012). Global children’s initiative: A good start. Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/activities/global_initiative/ubc/

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (2009). Policy brief on early childhood. Retrieved from http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/initiatives/inclusion/