Saturday, December 1, 2012

Global Children's Initiative



I reviewed the website about Harvard’s Global Children’s Initiative.  Three big goals of the Global Children’s Initiative are as follows:
1.      Reframe the discourse around child health and development.
2.      Support innovative, multi-disciplinary research and demonstration projects. 
3.      Build leadership capacity in child development research and policy.
Through the three main focuses of early childhood development, child mental health, and children in crisis and conflict situation, The Global Health Initiative wants to reframe health care and development by, “educating high-level decision-makers about the underlying science of learning, behavior, and health, beginning in the earliest years of life.” Next, supporting research and demonstration projects require, “to expand global understanding of how healthy development happens, how it can be derailed, and how to get it back on track.”  Finally, there is the need for leadership in child development and research and policy by, “focused on both individuals and institutions—in low- and middle-income countries to increase the number and influence of diverse voices and perspectives that are contributing to the growing global movement on behalf of young children.”
These needs are great, especially for children in third-world country, because there is no standard form of early child development and education.  This article gives reports of the contributions of the Zambian Early Childhood Development and the Mother Child Initiative from the Turkey Early Childhood Development.  The site also features spotlights on faculty promoting early childhood policy and counties like Brazil trying to implement new policy on early childhood.

Resource:

3 comments:

  1. I think it is wonderful that there are agencies that are spreading the news about current research on early childhood development to third world countries. I believe that the most effective way to help these countries is by educating key citizens of the country who then can become the educators of others in the country. Kind of like giving a man a fish or teaching a man to fish.

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  2. I also focused on the Global Initative. I found the article on the Zambian assessment very interesting. It taught me to look outside of the "norm" and the things we do in America to assess children because those methods may not work globally and chidren need educated EC professionals all over the world. Good Post!

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  3. I think its wonderful how ECH education is expanding. The importance of educating children at a young age is becoming recognized over and over again. Not only does the importance of health and well-being come into play so does the need for educating children. its great to see UNICEF along with Harvard GCI and others coming together to educate and provide assistance to the young.

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