Week 5: Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

I unfortunately was not able to reach my international contact. I was really disappointed by this because it could have been a really great learning activity for me. I have been following the save the children podcast and The Global fund for Children podcast.

Part 1: The Global Fund for children

This week I analyzed the blog article, “Protecting the Unprotected.” (Bednarek, 2014) This article is about migrants in Serbia. They formed a group called the Asylum Protection Center (APC). “The Asylum Protection Center (APC) to serve this often intentionally forgotten and misunderstood community.” (Bednarek, pg. 1, 2014)  “The APC team conducts a range of workshops for the migrants, tackling cultural differences and stereotypes, issues of identity and violence, and health issues. The team also often tries to include local Serbian kids at the workshops in order to stimulate dialogue and interaction with the local community.” (Bednarek, pg.1, 2014)

The Global fund for children is always doing taking care of concerns and needs around the world. Their works are very inspiring and lead many to want to do more for their community and as well as around the world. This semester I have learned so many things about this program. It makes me want to find more ways to help around my neighborhood.

Part 2: This week we were asked to review the Global Children’s Initiative website and note my findings.

The Initiative is “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.” (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, pg 1, 2010). “They support three groups guided by these domains, early childhood development; child mental health; and children in crisis and conflict situations.”  (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, pg. 1, 2010).

The article that I chose to analyze was, Studying the Effects of Global Adversity, Two Generations at a Time by Millicent Lawton. “We know from the science...that these investments in early childhood and in healthy life trajectories for young people in adversity have a social and an economic impact,” says Betancourt. (Lawton, pg. 1, 2012) The research in this article is on two generations of people with HIV. They have been trying to see the outcomes and struggles with this situation and how it has affected families and development.

The second article I read was the Zambian Early Childhood Development Project. The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project was launched in 2009. One of their goals was to create the first comprehensive assessment in Zambia. “Seven fundamental domains of child development were identified for measurement: fine motor skills, language (expressive and receptive), non-verbal reasoning, information processing, executive functioning, socio-emotional development and task orientation” (Günther, Matafwali, Moucheraud, & Zuilkowski, 2012, p.6). It was truly amazing to read about all the assessment and technological strategies used within these assessments. I learned a lot from reading this article.

 Bednarek, Joseph (2014) Protecting the Unprotected. Global Fund for children. Retrieved from  https://www.globalfundforchildren.org/protecting-the-unprotected/

 Fink, Gunther Ph.D. (2012 , Zambian Early Childhood Project. Child at Harvard University. Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/zambian_project/Center on the Developing

Lawton, Millicent. (2012) Studying the Effects of Global Adversity, Two Generations at a Time. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/faculty_and_staff/faculty/faculty_spotlights/theresa_betancourt/