In completing the alternative assignment I first went to the World Forum Foundation website and reviewed a presentation called Indigenous Children's Rights: Equality, Inclusion, Human Development by Martha Llanos, PhD. The presentation talked about the indigenous population in Latin America and how to protect the rights of these children. Key concepts that were focused on were to ensure indigenous children were protected and had the following: birth registration, health and nutrition, education, and protection from abuse and protect children from armed conflict, child trafficking, child labor, and separation from family. These seem like basic rights but many of these children their basic rights are not protected. Some example of statistics included the Peruvian indigenous children and how only 37% had access to services, 20% had potable water, 20% suffer malnutrition and 49% are poor. As such the presentation also discussed the Convention on the Rights of Children which is listed as follows:
“Indigenous children shall be taught to read and write in their own Language or in the language most commonly used by the group to which they belong."
“The development of respect for the child’s own cultural identity, language and values”
“In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of indigenous origins exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.”
The presentation also focused on how and what education should look like in order to provide equality for indigenous children as follows:
• Curricula based on Community Interests and Collective Values.
• Programs based on Rights
• Mother-Tongue & Bilingualism
• Interculturalism
• Promotion of Resilience
In reviewing the Global Children's Initiative at the Developing Child at Harvard University website I gained insights in that the Global Children's Initiative focuses on three strategic areas. These strategic areas are reframing the discourse around child health and development, supporting innovative, multi-disciplinary research and demonstration projects, and building leadership capacity in child development research and policy.
The Global Children's Initiative strategic areas has also generated a portfolio of activities in the developmental domains of early childhood development, child mental health, and
children in crisis and conflict situations.
The organization also provides information on various research that is taking place around the world. One example is the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project. This project was to
to measure the results of the ongoing anti-malaria initiative on children’s development in Zambia. The results of this project is to provide more understanding of child development and to assist in identifying key interventions to continue to improve child outcomes.
References:
Global Children's Initiative
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/
World Forum Foundation
http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/
Rhonda,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the thoroughness in your review-the thoughts that I visualize when I think of indigenous children are usually ones of poverty and substandard environments. I am pleased that Dr. Llanos profiled this in her publication. She exposes these things and makes people aware which as we know is the beginning of a solution.
Thank you Rhonda for your insights.
Catherine
Hello Rhonda,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting website, the very basic human rights that children in the United States receive, is not so basic of indigenous children. This is one of the reasons early childhood education is left to chance, because so much focus has to be placed on basic human right issues. It's refreshing to hear that some policies are in place to help with this issue!
Hi Rhonda
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your review. It is surprising that the things we take for granted, some individuals have very little of. For instance, i have to constantly remind the children at my school that they should conserve and not waste water (they usually leave the tap running after use) and here we have only 20% of Perusian indigenous children with access to potable water.
It is also heart wrenching to read of the plight of these children. nonetheless, there is hope, as from your review I can see that some measure have been put in place to assist these children.