Issues Related to Excellence and Equity in Early Childhood

Issues Related to Excellence and Equity in Early Childhood

I listened to the podcast conversation with Barnabus Otaala on the World Forum Radio (World Forum Radio, n.d.). Otaala spoke about villages in Uganda and how HIV affects children. He spoke about a child who tested positive for HIV and how children with HIV are judged in the villages by everyone, including parents and teachers. They were invited to speak with a doctor about HIV to gain better understanding about the disease. This collaboration between doctors, educators, and the villages shows how communities can work together to gain knowledge and a better understanding about topics even if they are controversial.  By working together, they took the time to understand the disease and helped in the fair treatment of children with HIV.

            Through researching the Global Children’s Initiative, I learned more about “persistent gaps in education and health”, how they are “associated with socioeconomic status”, and what other countries are doing in an effort to combat these gaps (Center on the Developing Child, n.d.). The website covered different programs in Brazil, Canada, and Mexico. The work in Brazil is a collaborative effort through Nucleo Ciencia Pela Infancia. Their main effort is to provide training to “Braizilian policy makers on how to apply developmental science to inform programs and policies” (Center on the Developing Child, n.d.). The Alberta Family Wellness Initiative works to bridge that gap between “what we know” and “what we do”. They do this “through activities in applied research, knowledge translation, professional training, and evaluation” (Center on the Developing Child, n.d.). In Mexico, the Aceleradora de Innovacion para la Primera Infancia is working on an “extensive urban revitalization effort” (Center on the Developing Child, n.d.).  The last program is Across Countries: Saving Brains. It is a “partnership that seeks to improve the outcomes for children living in poverty through interventions that nurture and protect early brain development in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life” (Center on the Developing Child, n.d.).

 What I learned through reading about the different programs is that all of them are centered on the science of brain development and what they can do to help policy makers around the world in an effort to close these gaps in education and health in children. I also learned what each program was doing to address the issues of equity and excellence in their countries. Regardless of the inequity, there was scientific evidence to help guide the way. All of the programs used science, policy, and education to help provide interventions for each of their unique issues.

References

Working Globally- Center on the Developing Child. (n.d.). Retreived from: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work/

World Forum Foundation Radio (n.d.). Barnabus Otaala. Retrieved from: http://www.viaway.com/category/2691-21490/world-forum-radio