Save the Children website

There is an article on the Save the Children website that talks about what they are doing currently in East Africa.  It’s a touching story and also an inspirational one.  The woman featured in the article, Amy Richmond, is a child protection advisor with Save the Children and she recaptures for us a day in the life for her in East Africa.  Basically she wakes up early and has a minimal breakfast, why eat when there are thousands starving right?  “First stop is reception where dozens, sometime hundreds, of children arrive each day. As soon as they’re registered, they’re rushed into a Save the Children feeding center – many of them eating their first meal in days” (Save the Children, 2011)  She goes around the camp keeping the area clean and also trying to connect lost children with their parents or someone who will care for them.  She gets the opportunity to listen to their stories and to find hope in how much they want to succeed in education and in life. 

 These issues really make you stop and think about your own current situation and how you couldn’t even fathom really what these people are going through.  Although I cannot go to East Africa or even the next state over at this time, there are many volunteer organizations that I and we can partake in.  I feel that economists, neuroscientists, and politicians understand the need for such organizations as Save the Children and can see the benefits it provides the U.S. when other countries can depend on us for help.  Hopefully we will always be in a state to help others. 

 On an ending note, there is a story that I want everyone to read.  It’s so devastating that I don’t feel I can properly narrate it back.  Here is the link, http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.7749871/k.F928/Pregnant_and_Alone_a_Teen_Escapes_Somalia.htm?msource=emeen30s0911.  This story will bring tears to eyes, outrage to hearts, and make stomachs sick.  But it is a tale from the life of a real person, someone who actually went through this.  Please read it if you can. 

Save the Children. (2011). Day in the Life of a Relief Worker in East Africa. Retrieved from the Save the Children website http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.7729197/k.B044/Day_in_the_Life_of_a_Relief_Worker_in_East_Africa.htm?msource=emeen30s0911

Getting to know International Contacts

I haven’t heard a thing from any of the out of country childhood professionals I have tried to contact.  I decided to try the alternative assignment for this week and went to the website provided for information on another country. 

Kyrgyzstan

It’s sad to say but I had never even heard of the country Kyrgyzstan (pronounced Kur-gi-stan).  After learning about the country’s poverty rates, I could only stop and consider their situation with prayer.  Kyrgyzstan used to be part of the Soviet Union until in 1991 they were able to gain their independence.  After that they had to basically start over and become a country all their own without the pressure of the Soviet Union, but also without the regulations they had been living under and were used to for so long. 

Finding their independence came with a price because not only were they “one of the poorest ex-Soviet republics” at the time, they also had to shift from a “planned to market economy” (childpoverty.org)  These were drastic but needed changes and they were able to join the World Trade Organization seven years later.  Although most of the economy is fed from their agriculture, it hasn’t been enough yet to sustain most of the population out of the poverty gutter.

These numbers will put a damper on your mood and a tear in your eye, “57 per cent of urban infants under 1, and 65 per cent of rural under 1s lived in poverty” in 2001.  Although before Kyrgyzstan’s independence most children utilized education benefits and also the country “had much higher levels of health and education than many higher-income countries,” (childpoverty.org) since the independence the country has declined drastically from both of those areas.  Now children can be found working full time jobs to help with income. 

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre CHIP (2007). Country Overviews Kyrgyzstan. Retrieved from http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/index.php?action=countryo#25.

Sharing Web Resources

I have been looking over the Save the Children website.  Here is the link- http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.6115947/k.8D6E/Official_Site.htm

This website is inspiring.  Save the Children was first started in England and now there is also a Save the Children USA.  From reading the different articles on the website I was able to learn there are three main goals of the organization.  Child protection, Education and Child Development, and Health and Nutrition (Save the Children, 2011) encompass the biggest objectives.  With these aims in mind Save the Children has helped children and families in “120 countries on 6 continents”!  They have also estimated helping “64 million children” (Save the Children, 2011) 

I wanted to point out something that touched me; I read on the site that they have “Dewormed children in 16 countries in 2010, including more than one million children in Ethiopia alone” (Save the Children, 2011)  My mother used to tell me about her having worms when she was child, but I figured something like that didn’t occur anymore- kind of like Smallpox.  I was very surprised to learn this news and to think of how naïve I am to diseases and issues in other countries.  It was a real shock and heart breaker but also a humble reminder of the place I call home and how fortunate I am.

Another shocking (to me) issue on the website that I saw brought up repeatedly was the simple issue of germs.  There were so many instances in which this organization was able to help large communities by simply teaching the children to wash their hands, thereby the children went home and taught their families the knowledge they had learned about germs.  Other things included boiling water, or making dehydration medicines.  In Bangladesh, “Save the Children helped organize nearly 53,000 school children in Bangladesh to wash hands together on Global Handwashing Day – making the Guinness Book of Records for the second year running” (Save the Children, 2011)  Amazing the simple things we take for granted. 

Establishing a Professional Contact Outside of the US

I've been asked to establish two contacts outside the US that are in the Early Childhood field.  I am very excited about this mainly to learn about a new program that is helping children in another country.  A new way of doing things, new ideas, and other opinions regarding young children, count me in!  I have contacted UNICEF in Italy and the German National Committee for Early Childhood Education in Germany.  I have chosen these two countries because I love Italy, and I have been to Germany.  I also considered the fact that if I can develop solid relationships and I ever needed to go abroad for work....  why not try to get an assignment somewhere where I know a friend or two!  I am looking into contacting others as well if I do not hear from the two I have chosen so far.  But it hasn't even been a week, so we'll see.  !!!!

I also need to view an Early Childhood Organizations website and review how they are helping in the field.  I have chosen to view the Save the Children website.  I first learned a little about Save the Children through a magazine article in which Jennifer Garner, who is a spokesperson, was helping children advance in reading.  You know before starting these courses, I probably wouldn't have given the article a second glance.  But since learning more and more about the Early Childhood field I have been able to expand my knowledge base and realize there really are needs that I can fill.