Impacts on Early Emotional Development
UNICEF Eritrea
I chose to
research East Africa on the UNICEF website. I chose the country of Eritrea
because I was born there when it was still a part of Ethiopia. They became
their own country in 1991 after decades of war. I decided to focus on education
and the barriers to education. Along with UNICEF, Eritrea’s government has been
working on an education plan to increase the number of children in school,
especially girls. Children in Eritrea face many hardships such as being orphans
due to losing both parents from the struggles of war and disease or only have one parent for the same
reasons. Other children are not in school because they are working to help their
families or of marrying age (for girls) between the ages of 11 to 13 (UNICEF
Eritrea, 2012). Health concerns such as malaria, HIV/Aids, food security, and
malnutrition are other hardships children in Eritrea may face (UNICEF Eritrea,
2012). Children from the nomadic regions of the country are also hard to reach
to receive an education and many will walk one to two hours to get to school.
Although it isn’t part of UNICEF’s policy to help with infrastructure (building
schools), the Eritrean government persuaded UNICEF to help build schools and
repair damaged schools and saw a “28% increase in net school enrollment from
1993/1994 to 42% by 2000/2001” (UNICEF Eritrea, 2012). The other notable thing
I read was with the help from UNICEF Eritrea (2012) they worked to place
orphaned children with other family members and by the end of 2010, “fewer than
500 children were either in orphanages or community-based living nationwide”
(UNICEF Eritrea, 2012). In 2006, there were approximately 105,000 orphaned
children (UNICEF Eritrea, 2012).
It is
extraordinary to hear how hard they have worked to become a more sustainable
country and have also worked to be more holistic by recognizing children need
an education, family, and better health care. They have also worked to change
cultural norms such as children working or marrying early rather than getting
an education. Lack of education, family trauma, war trauma, malnutrition,
poverty, and lack of health care are all factors that affect emotional
development negatively. All of the things I listed lead to toxic stress and
affects social-emotional development and brain development (Center on the
Developing Child, n.d.). By working to locate homes for the orphaned children,
they were able to diffuse most of the toxic stress in their lives assuming they
went to homes with supportive families/relationships. I am somewhat relieved
that UNICEF has been there to help them recover and build but I am left
wondering how well it is still going since the information is from 2012 and
later. They’re still a relatively young country so I hope they keep building
and working towards a brighter future. Looking at the obstacles that these
children have had in their lives and all of the factors that were implemented
to improve their lives shows me the importance of effective early childhood and
early intervention. Another thing that it brings to mind is resiliency. Even
when children are exposed to toxic stressors, if they have loving relationships
and early interventions, they are able to repair the damage and will become stronger
than they were before (Center on the Developing Child, n.d.).
References
Center on the Developing Child.
(n.d.). Toxic Stress. Retrieved from: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/toxic-stress/
UNICEF Eritrea. (2012). D’Hnet H’Tsanat:
For the welfare of children UNICEF in Eritrea: Two decades of collaboration. UNICEF Eritrea: Publisher. Retrieved
from: https://www.unicef.org/eritrea/ECO_resources_20years.pdf
Trish,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing about Eritrea, because this is not a country you hear about often. It's great to hear that UNICEF helped build schools for their communities, which provides a possible future for these children. It's hard to believe that children in this world have to walk an hour or two to school, but that's their reality (hopefully not for long). I'm glad you mentioned social-emotional health, because that is something that sometimes gets overlooked when we think about poor countries. I believe we typically focus on nutrition and tangible resources because those are most noticeable when we see poverty. However, social-emotional health is equally as important, and these children need supports and resources for that as well.
Tara
Thank you for sharing! Until you research websites like UNICEF, you never really realize how fortunate we are in the United States. A friend of mine is from Ethiopia and lost both of her parents due to war when she was younger. Fortunately, she and her sisters were adopted by the same family and they relocated to Germany. Because she does not remember much about her parents, she strives to be a great mother to her daughters. Although hers was a happier ending, she still acts based on what happened in her childhood. This just goes to show you that children are impacted early on and whether their experiences are good or bad, they will remain with them for a lifetime.
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