The Global Fund for Children and Helping Children around the World

          This week, after looking into many ways of corresponding with international early childhood professionals and after finding the podcast site gone from its previous web address, I looked at the Global fund for children web site. I learned about the approach of the Global Fund for children, and I learned about how some poor children were being helped in Ecuador and how some similar children were being helped in Ethiopia. Although I have not yet found someone to correspond with, I have discovered international early childhood educators who are blogging. I still hope to share information from one of them before the weekend is over.

            The Global Fund for Children’s mission is to scout for, support, and strengthen organizations “that enable the most vulnerable children in their communities to thrive” (Global Fund for Children, 2013, para. 1). The Global Fund for Children looks for organizations that are new and have innovative ideas. It gives the organizations a little money to get them started. The organizations, themselves, take it from there. The Global Fund for Children (2013) strengthens these organizations through “management assistance, capacity building, [and] networking opportunities” (para. 4). One important way that the Global Fund for Children strengthens organizations is by helping those organizations share knowledge with each other at workshops. The following is an example of how the story of one of these organizations was shared and a similar organization commented on the similarity of the work of the two organizations. One organization was in Ecuador. One was in Ethiopia.

            In the barrios of Ethiopia, is located “Fundación UBECI, a grassroots organization that The Global Fund for Children has supported since 2012” (para 3). This organization runs mobile classrooms in “five open-air markets for the children of the vendors in these markets. These children are taught academics as well as “as well as lessons on nutrition, hygiene, and safety” (para 3). The goal of Fundación UBECI is to prepare these children, who generally have been working in the markets since they were very young, to enter traditional school. This foundation also works on parent attitudes toward education and on helping parents see the value in their children working less hours in the market. This foundation also develops relationships with parents who refuse to allow their children to participate in the open air classrooms because the staff at the foundation realizes that the children who do not participate are at the highest risk (Fisher, 2013).

            The following comment from Ethiopia enlightened me to the plight of some young girls. It is very distressing!

I am struck that the situation these children face is almost exactly like the situation in my home village of Koffele, Ethiopia. However, the pight of the young girls is our main focus because they are the victims of kidnapping, rape, female genital mutilation, too early marrage and childbirth which causes fistula and often death. Also, if a family can send a child to school, they will send the boys. That is why we focus on the girls. And, as in your blog, we work with families to convince them to send their girls to school. We, actually give them supplimental nutrition in trade for their cooperation. It has been very successful. In addition, we make home visits to ensure the support of the families. I believe that through
educating the girls they in turn will educate their children, both boys and girls and therfore we will educate the nation

(from https://www.globalfundforchildren.org/remembering-quitos-forgotten-children/  .

I also sent a message to a fourth grade teacher from India to see if she knew of an appropriate colleague who would like to correspond with me for this assignment. As I looked through the many international twitters from teachers around the world, I realized what possibilities there were for worldwide teacher cooperation and idea sharing!

 

References

Fisher, J. (2013, March 4). Remembering Quito’s Forgotten Children. Retrieved from https://www.globalfundforchildren.org/remembering-quitos-forgotten-children/    

  Global Fund for Children (2013). Our Approach. Retrieved from https://www.globalfundforchildren.org/what-we-do/our-approach/