Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

Part 1      
          This first week's blog course assignment of Issues and Trends of Early Childhood has been very interesting and help me to revisit the need to be resilient.  Part I provided me the opportunity to reach out to international professionals to help me enhance my knowledge of the issues and trends of young children who are in other parts of the world. 

          When I first began my search, I reviewed the links provided and it seemed that I was not able to connect.  I diligently kept trying and finally I was able to find a blog connection to one of the individuals, Madeleine Logan, a Communication Specialist, who is on a one year tour in the Central African Republic Ministry of Education in the city of Bangui, through the UNICEF organization.  My thoughts were that I  should find out about other countries that I had no knowledge about and this would be perfect. Madeleine had posted a blog about the need to provide school support by re-establishing educational resources.  She shared that since December 2012 due to the ongoing ethnic and religious fighting the number of children enrolled in school had diminished and there was a survey conducted that revealed 65% of the schools were closed.  There is a concern that without the re-start of education, children will not be properly educated.

          The second connection I made was with another UNICEF Organization in Cambodia, the point of contact is Phnom Penh via email.  I was  fascinated as I  read about the need to have safe water and basic sanitation so that children and families would not be in a position of being exposed to water borne diseases, I realized that this alone can be an interruption to the educational and developmental needs of the young children as well as impact the families as they try to provide with limitations of having a healthy environment.

          My initial connection to both, Madeleine and Phnom spelled out that I wanted to connect with them to discuss the issues and trends that are being faced in Bangui and Cambodia.  I wanted to find out how the young children and families are being affected and what is being done. I also let them know that I was a student in the Early Childhood Master's Program at Walden University and I that my goal is to be able to make a different in the lives of children, families, and those who are providing early childhood support and services.  If neither of my contacts respond, my alternative will be to access the Save the Children website because the two World Forum links were not accessible due the sites not being available.

Part 2

         As a Child Liaison Education Outreach Director for an early childhood at a  military installation, I chose to enhance my resources through following the Child Defense Organization, www.childrendefense.org. I felt that is would prompt me to be a better steward of my knowledge base skills as I continue to promote the need to be a strong advocate for all children especially military children as they transition more often that other children and often are not provided the right information that will allow them the resources to stay on target and reduce the fear that they will not be able to continue their educational goals as they move from one location to another. Just as we as individuals face changes, policies and procedures change and it is imperative that I be more diligent to be able to support families with the best information as possible.  I also look forward to reviewing site and receiving emails of the updates that CDF will provide to help me be a voice for children, and know how to address the issues that may affect children.