Most of the outside links lead to other child advocacy groups, statistics about children, polling data, research concerning children and evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies in regards to children and education (International Child Resource Institute, n.d.).
When I researched the project area of the site I found that the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI) has several projects in different parts of the world (International Child Resource Institute, n.d.). There was some similarity in some projects but none of the projects looked exactly the same. This made me think that ICRI did not take a “one solution fits all” attitude but they truly went into the communities and saw where they were lacking and what they needed help with the most. Some of their projects focused on preventing children from being physically and sexually exploited, lifting families out of poverty, meeting the basic needs of children (International Child Resource Institute, n.d.). They also focused on immigrant and refugee children, orphaned children, training , child advocacy, supporting prisoners and their families and the quality of early childhood education (International Child Resource Institute, n.d.).
I have not received a newsletter from ICRI even though I signed up for one weeks ago. In terms of excellence in education there was a blog on the website which described a classroom that seemed to be an example of this (Cai, 2012) . It was ICRI’s Heart Leap Center in Berkeley, California. The blogger was an intern at ICRI, she visited the school and noticed developmentally appropriate practices, attentive and responsive teachers, parent involvement , the use of a “discovery-based emergent curriculum”, children engaged in creative activities and various play areas could be seen all over the classroom (Cai, 2012). In the classroom there were also areas for music, reading, science and sports (Cai, 2012).
From the website I realized that equity in education is an issue that affects many if not all nations. “Disabled children and their families face many challenges” (International Child Resource Institute, n.d.). In Nepal, “many disabled Nepali children continue to be isolated and excluded from the country's educational system” (International Child Resource Institute, n.d.) We need to continue to advocate for children and speak out for them.
References:
Cai, H. ( 2012, January 23). Hearts leap center [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.icrichild.org/blog/?category=Early+Childhood+Development
International Child Resource Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.icrichild.org/
Karina,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. I to have not received a newsletter from the website I signed up with. I also believe that disabled children and their family have many challenges. I know for a fact that they are discriminated against in the United States. There are some teachers in my program have tried to get fired or have walked out because they do not want to work with a child with a disability. There was big debate and argument because a parent tried to enroll her son with down syndrome and the teachers created an uproar. It was very ugly and because of the no child left behind policy we could not deny this family services. I think that this was a very sad case and I believe these teachers should have been fired. They treated the parent so bad, that the mother decided not to enroll her child in our program. I told her that I was not upset with her and that I believe she made the right choice. The program manager did not about this and did not reprimand the teachers.
It is good that the ICRI has taken into consideration the different solutions that would meet the needs of every issue. Most times organisations want to fix different problems with the same plaster which is not usually possible, and may end up causing more problems rather than fixing any of them.
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