Getting to Know International Contacts in Early Childhood Education

I received an initial response (Aileen from Alberta,  Canada) in my attempt to contact other ECE professionals from around the world, but additional contacts have not received a response.  For that reason I choose to listen to a podcast for this week's blog assignment.  I choose the Podcast by Meridas Eka Yora which I retrieved from :  http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/world-forum-radio/.  Meridas is the founder and director of the institution Fajar Hiayah for Islamic Education and Director of the Yayasan Fajar Hidayah Foundation. He developed three boarding schools for children who are orphaned.  Many of the orphans were as a result of the tsunami that struck southern Indonesia and devastated the region in 2004.  However additional orphans are a result of conflicts in the area where children may have seen their parents killed.  In the orphanages,  the preschool teachers are placed in the role of the mother and father and nurse as well as the teacher.  Meirdas described the schools as the families for the children where the older children act as older brothers and sister.   Meridas further described how physcologists were hired but they found that the best psychologists were the teachers and other children and how some children were unable to accept what happened to their families even months after the tsunami and how these children received special treatment from people like him who would take these children into their homes. 
After listening to the podcast I have a better understanding of how an area devastated by disaster and conflict handles educating young children.  For the teachers in these programs in southern Indonesia, their role is not only important but vital to the physical, emotional and cognitive well being of the children.  I believe that often in the United States we focus so much on academics that we often forget the importance of caring for the whole child.  Through natural disaster and conflict, this program in Indonesia has found a way to meet the needs of the children and to provide an education to the most vulnerable.  I believe that in helping families living in poverty in America, it is important that we as early childhood educators are familar with local resources so that we can make referrals to families and help them access the resources needed to meet all of their child's needs.

National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies

This week I looked more closely at the  National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies
http://www.naccrra.org/.   NACCRRA works to make sure that all families in the United States have quality and affordable child care.  The NACCRRA works through research and advocacy for policies that improve the lives of children and families.  I found many resources for child care providers including information about the recent school shooting at Sandy Hook and how to help children cope with traumatic events, talking to children about violence and coping with crisis.  I also found links to child care news by each state and information about state and federal policies and politcal information. Although I did not see anything related to the topic of my study this week (Diversity and Demographics), I found that it had many resources and information that would be helpful to child care providers.  This is definitely a resource I will continue to use. 

Establishing Contacts and Expanding Resources

As part of this week's blog assignment for my class on Issues and Trends in Early Childhood Education, I have sent e-mails to early education professionals in the United Kingdom, China, Australia and Canada.  I picked countries and professionals that most likely speak English so that language would not be a barrier to communicating with them.  Five of my seven e-mails were immediately returned undeliverable.  I tried to search the professional websites from these countries to find e-mails for possible contact with no luck so far.  I will continue to work on making professional contacts because I really look forward to learning more about early education as it exists in other countries and cultures.  In making contact, I sent a short e-mail explaining why I was contacting them and that I would appreciate the opportunity to talk with them about early education.  I can only imagine that if i were the one receiving an e-mail from someone I did not know that I would probably be afraid to open the e-mail due to computer viruses.  My hope is someone takes a chance, reads and returns my e-mail.   

For expanding resources, I already receive information from NAEYC, NHSA and Birth to Three and get information through facebook from them as well, so I decided to look into National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies and Association for Childhood Education International as I work with many child care programs.  I look forward to learning more through these organizations.