Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

I started sending emails on December 30th because I tried to contact early childhood professionals in Africa before in vain. Therefore, I knew this was not going to be a piece of cake. I sent emails to (agj@agj.de;  ulrike.konrad-ristau@agj.de; siobhanf@nippa.org;  cecd@iafrica.com; arebimbo@yahoo.com;  hicham_moukram@hotmail.com;  2kdotcom@ghana.com). I have yet to hear from them.

I listened to some of the podcast and subscribed in order to have access to future podcasts. My favorite was from Delfena Mitchell the Director of the Liberty Children’s Home, on the outskirts of Belize City. It is amazing how children are facing the same issues of maltreatment, poverty among others in many parts of the world. She runs an amazing school that transforms the children from broken to hopeful. We have much to do as societies to take care of our children.

“Because of poor health, under nutrition and poor learning environments that fail to provide enough responsive stimulation and nurturance, too many children around the world are entering school late, performing poorly at school and not achieving their full potential. The effects reach far beyond the individual lives of children and affect families, communities and the development of entire nations. The underlying cause of all this is poverty” (UNICEF, 2007, para.1). This is a powerful statement from the leading international early childhood organization. Some of the internationally notorious problems such as malnutrition, lack of education, and  widespread diseases are more often than not related to poverty. Growing up in a developing country, I have seen far many children lack the resources to attain their full potential because of poverty. I believe that every child deserves the best education possible regardless of socio-economic status. Therefore, I have decided to take this opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge of Head Start and Early Start Program. Head Start’s success in providing comprehensive services for the underprivileged students has been recognized. It can be quite daunting due to all the ramifications of poverty. However, this model shows that it is doable. I feel a have a good grasp of the research rational behind the project. However, my main purpose is to acquire an in-depth understanding of the program, performance standards and ways to successfully implement a Head Start affiliate program. In addition, I hope to understand how this program can be replicated in countries in the developing world. I reviewed some of the research on Head Start, I became a member, and joined the program’s social-networking site, and I hope will learn something valuable in those resources. Head Start website has a news and advocacy events that streams up to date events, and I hope this will keep me abreast of all the news related to the program.

I invite everyone to join in this discussion, and please feel free to post anything that you believe will help me have a deeper understanding of this program.

Reference

UNICEF. (2007, November 27). Early Childhood. Retrieved from The big picture: http://www.unicef.org/earlychildhood/index_bigpicture.html