My international contact is Patrick Makokoro from Zimbabwe. Patrick is the Director at Nhaka Foundation, a non profit that is implementing
a program that is increasing access to early education especially for
orphans and vulnerable children. Early Childhood Development centers serve as
an
entry point to the community for OVC and HIV/AIDS initiatives. The
focus population consists of families containing orphans and vulnerable
children in economically deprived rural areas with a high prevalence of
HIV/AIDS.
The following questions were this weeks exchange of information between Patrick and I:
How are you involved in early childhood work in your country?
I am the
founder and promoter of the Zimbabwe Network of Early Childhood Actors.
Through this platform we are bringing together all the
organizations especially the grassroots organizations working in ECD to make
sure that their voices are projected and that there is access to resources
both at a
Network and organizational level. In fact, I am just now coming
from the successful hosting of our inaugural national conference! This has
come as a culmination of my role as a Global Leader and also my work in ECD
in Zimbabwe for the past 5 years.
What impact does your work have on
the early childhood community where you live?
The impact is huge. I
actually live in the peri urban areas where the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS
is very high and therefore families rarely make conscious choices of ensuring
that orphans are sent to preschool. As a person who promotes access to early
learning for children the community's
perception and awareness on the
importance of ECD has been increased. More children are now accessing quality
learning preschools and this has been a huge impact felt in the whole
community.
What is your greatest challenge in your early childhood
work?
The greatest challenge we have has been the resources. There is
such a lot of work that needs to be done in the communities in order to
increase access to early childhood programs. The preschool buildings are old
and worn down and as such require renovation, there are no play materials,
the teachers need to be retrained in order to increase quality education
amongst the many
challenges. These require either financial or material
resources and my job has been made even tougher by the global financial
crisis. Some of the other down level challenges we have been handling through
appreciative inquiry and other strength based approaches to community
development.
This week with the study of poverty and my personal quest to learn about the local poverty in my community and beginning my exchanges with Patrick has caused me to really reflect on poverty and its over all impact on the lives of children and families. This has been a very inspiring and soul searching week for me personally.
Jill, I am glad that you were able to make contact with your international contact. I am glad that he appears to be very open about his involvement in bringing quality care to his country. How has this week's experiences changed or confirmed your beliefs about poverty in your area and, in other countries?
ReplyDeleteVery informative post! Yes, he appears to have his work cut out for him with such challenges.
ReplyDeleteYes Jill,
ReplyDeleteI can identify with your contact. The need for access to resources and the need to train and re train workforce is enormous and expensive. it is expensive because most materials are not locally made and to use your currency to buy something from a developed world is not a child's play. even with good intention, you ve got to have access to real good fund.
By the way, congratulations Jill, You made it through to your contact.