As of yet I have not heard from any of the international contacts that I emailed. I am hopeful that someone well email me back however I did look up a podcast to listen to and reviewed the Children’s Initiative website.
The podcast titled ‘Beyond School Books’ – a podcast series on Education in Emergencies by Rudina Vojvoda talked about how there are 200 million children under the age of five that are not able to reach their full potential in cognitive development due to poverty, conflict, malnutrition, inadequate care and lack of educational opportunities. The moderator Kathryn Herzog spoke with Dr. Jack Shonkoff and Dr. Chloe O’Gara about this issue.
According to Dr. Shonkoff neuroscience suggests that stronger returns on investments could come from programs that not only provide rich learning experiences for children but also build the capacity of parents and other caregivers to protect young children from the consequences of toxic stress. Dr. Shonkoff states “The circuits in the brain are very vulnerable to toxic stress, so even in the presence of good education later, children will not achieve as much as they would have if they’re not protected from this adversity early in their life” (Vojvoda, 2012).
Dr. O’Gara talked about how little investments are being made in early childhood. Africa invests less than 1 per cent of public education resources in early childhood education, Latin America 9 per cent, and 10 per cent in Western Europe (Vojvoda, 2012). She goes on to say that there is a lot of room for growth in awareness and investment in early childhood care and education, particularly for children who benefit the most – the least advantaged children. Schools need to become outreach agents, assisting families and communities in implementing small-scale early childhood programs that focus on getting children ready for school.
Both speakers stressed the importance of empowering families and communities. I feel that this is important for the success of every child. Families and communities are the biggest advocates for their children.
Dr. Shonkoff concluded with this quote “This is not just about stimulating minds. This is about protecting brains” (Vojvoda, 2012).
Three new insights that I have gained from exploring Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” Global Children’s Initiative is the centerpiece of the Center on the Developing Child to focus on children’s health around the globe and development an agenda. Through exploration of the website, I learned about some of the activities that are a focus on the Global Children’s Initiative.
One activity is the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project. The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project focuses on the early childhood experiences and development within sub-Saharan Africa. A number of states have shown the impact a child’s development, health, and educational outcomes but there is little evidence on the areas of sub-Saharan Africa. The Zambian Ministry of Education, the Examination Council of Zambia, UNICEF, the University of Zambia, and the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University launched the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project (ZECDP) in 2009, a collaborative effort to measure the effects of an ongoing anti-malaria initiative on children’s development in Zambia. In order to do this successfully they created a new comprehensive instrument for assessing children’s physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development before and throughout their schooling careers—the first assessment tool of its kind in Zambia. 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.
Another insight is I learned that the Center on the Developing Child is launching its first major programmatic effort outside the United States. This effort is a part of the centers Global Children’s Initiative and is called Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância. In collaboration with local experts, this project aims to use the science of child health and development to guide stronger policies and larger investments to benefit young children and their families in Brazil. Through this effort to work towards benefits of young children and families in Brazil, organizations are working together to catalyze more effective policies and programs that will, ultimately, foster a more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable society.
The third insight that I learned about was the video Super-Cérebro. Super-Cérebro is the Portuguese translation of Brain Hero, a three-minute video depicting how actions by a range of people in the family and community can affect a child’s development. This video corresponds to the child’s development and what impacts a child’s development including but not limited to their brain development, the community in which a child grows, the experiences a child faces throughout early childhood development. This video was a very informational piece for parents of children of young ages.
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