Issues and Trends - New sites and contacts!

I remember World Forum Foundation from a previous assignment. They have begun a network -WoFoNet for Early Childhood Professionals from all over the world. Each individual can subscribe to conversations/topics that interest them, then communicate with other EC professionals. This past week WFF was in San Juan, Puerto Rico for the World Forum on Early Care and Education Conference. Topics discussed during this last week, with over 850 participants, were men in child care, healthy environments, supporting children and families w/ HIV and AIDS, Play, and Children's Rights. Below is one of the topic summaries I found:

Questions Surrounding Children’s Rights in Diverse Cultures

This is a summary of issues related to Session #33 at the 2014 World Forum in San Juan, Puerto Rico, moderated by John Nimmo (Australia/USA) and Maria Thereza Marcilio (Brazil), held on Friday May 9^th, 10:45am – 12:15pm

Overview:

When we think about the rights of young children – what they are and how we can promote and protect them – we must consider complex and often contentious issues that reflect differences in cultural, economic and other contextual factors and perspectives. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is one key tool in this work, but it has its limitations. We believe that a critical and inclusive dialogue can only strengthen the Convention and our advocacy of children’s rights.

This session is an open dialogue with World Forum participants. The co-moderators seek to provoke and facilitate a deep and thought provoking session that brings forward issues often left unexamined. This session also draws on issues raised in prior World Forum sessions by the Working Group on Children’s Rights. The moderators will create and feed back to participants a summary of issues, ideas, possible actions, and further work needed, that arise during the session.

Goal:

To raise and explore complex cultural, economic and other contextual issues related to children’s rights, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and their implementation in diverse communities across the globe.

Issues for discussion include:

1. Are there differences in how communities and cultures view, value, and prioritize the core rights (i.e., protection, provision, potential, and participation)?
   1. What is the role of cultural and economic contexts in creating a “hierarchy” of rights? What are the dangers of prioritization? How can we link and integrate the various rights (an interdependence of rights)?
2. What is the role of social-economic class privilege/entitlement in our thinking about and implementation of the rights of children? To what extent does children’s access to rights reflect access to resources (e.g. economic, education, etc)?
   1. How do cultural values regarding individualism and community-orientation impact our understanding of rights?
3. How do cultural expectations regarding child development (what young children can or can’t do) impact our views about rights and their implementation?
4. How do cultural and generational views regarding gender roles/identity and equity affect how we conceptualize the rights of children?
5. What does children’s “participation” look like in different communities given differences in education, community access, and cultural values (e.g. elder respect/con respeto, and literacy)?
   1. What is the role of children’s contributions through work as a form of participation in community? How do we differentiate these contributions from exploitation and labor?
      

I have joined some conversations, reached out to make friends, and have gotten several friend acceptances; but no responses to the messages I have sent. I have e-mailed EC people from Canada, Australia, Nepal, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Norway, and Kazakhstan. I am really looking forward to communicating with so many different cultures.

http://www.worldforumfoundation.org





The website I chose to explore further during this class is ZerotoThree.org. We have all used resources from this site, but usually do not have the extra time to really get involved with what all they offer to parents and early childhood people. I have been interested in brain development and prenatal nutrition since the Foundations class. I have even made a presentation on their importance to our caregivers group.

http://zerotothree.org