International Equity and Excellence

I have had no responses from my attempts at international contacts so I chose to listen to another World Forum Podcast and to investigate The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and their Global Children's Initiative.  The following stories highlight efforts being made to improve early childhood experiences around the world.
The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard was established in 2006 in an effort to utilize Harvard's resources to generate research and knowledge to support improved life outcomes for children everywhere. 
The Global Children's Initiative's focus is to educate the public and specifically policy makers on the science of learning, behavior, and health; to support research and projects in selected countries to help them understand healthy development and how to achieve it; and to empower child development leadership and research in low- and middle-income countries (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative/).

Un Buen Comienzo (UBC) which means "A Good Start" is a collaborative project located in Santiago, Chile.  The goal is to improve early childhood education for four, five, and six year old children, especially in the area of language development and socio-emotional development.  The program focuses on professional development for the teachers; but, also works on getting families involved with the early education process,and improving children's health to bolster school attendance.   The program is the first of its kind in Latin America to utilize a longitudinal evaluation, supplying comprehensive data.  The project not only has funding support from the Center on the Developing Child, but also from international public and private sources.
The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project (ZECDP) was established to measure the effects of ongoing malaria control efforts in Zambia (Sub-Saharan Africa).  The ZECDP developed a comprehensive assessment tool to measure physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development of children before and throughout their schooling experience.  The assessment tool is called ZamCAT and was first used to assess preschool children in 2010, then reassessed in 2011 and again in 2012.  There was a link on the website to the actual Child Assessment Tool and the Parent Assessment Tool which I found very helpful in getting an idea of what they were assessing.  The Parent Assessment Tool was very interesting because it covered everything from background information on who lives at home with the child, the types of reading material in the home, the mother and the child's health history, and the parents' perception of their child's socio-emotional development.

I also listened to an interesting podcast with Irma Allen, an American, living in Swaziland which is located between South Africa and Mozambique.  She is the Chairperson of Swaziland Environment Authority which is the equivalent of the U.S. EPA.  She is also a member of the World Forum Nature Action Collaborative for Children.  She trains people from the community to become early childhood teachers.  Her love of nature serves her well as there are no classrooms in Swaziland - only nature!  She said they build all their lessons around nature - the trees, grass, or water.  They make their own little laboratories out of their surroundings.  They learn a respect for their environment.  She shared a story of a young man who told them his early childhood experience with them had motivated him and given him a love for his country and appreciation for nature which he had taken for granted.  He also told them how the welcoming, nurturing experience he had with them had significantly impacted him and provided him the acceptance he needed as an orphan. http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/radio.php