Getting to Know Internation Contacts

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.

Sharing Web Resources

The Organization I chose to learn more about is Child Care Aware® of America.  The focus of this organization is be our nations leading voice for child care.  They work with local and state Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies to ensure that families have access to quality and affordable child care.  They also are leaders in developing and advocating for child care policies.  The website is as follows:  http://www.naccrra.org/

In the public policy section of thier website they provide information for advocates on the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) as well as develop a policy agenda.  They have an action center and your can sign up for their weekly newsletter titled, "Capitol Connection:  Weekly Update!".  They also provide training for child advocates and host a national policy conference each year in the spring.

In this weeks Capitol Connection they provided resouces for parents and professional regarding recovery and relief from Hurricane Sandy.  The provided information on Voting for Children and Families and how to locate your polling place.  They were also utilizing social media by providing updates for both Twitter and Facebook that stated "I Voted for Children and Families".  Additionally, they provided information about Race to the Top District Application deadline extensions.  Each week they host a lunch & learn webinar to provide training for early childhood advocates.  This weeks lunch & learn was titled, "The New Face of Hill".  This webinar is on Thursday and I am planning on attending.  I will keep you posted!

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

In my quest to expand my circle of early childhood professional contact to include international professionals I have emailed three organizations to make contact, but at this time have not heard back from them.  Additionally, I also emailed Roger Neugebauer with Child Care Exchange.  Roger and his wife Bonnie coordinate the World Forum so I asked him to assist me in making some international connections.  Roger has already emailed me back and copied on an email to some of his contacts.  I am hopeful that I will successfully will create my international connection.

The website I chose to explore is Child Care Aware of America formerly National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.  I chose them because they provide a great voice to the early childhood community.  Additionally, they have recently gone through a re-branding process and they have updated and changed much of their information so I wanted to explore this website.  They completely re-designed their website and it full of resources and divided into three different categories early care providers, parents, and advocates.

I look forward to learning from my new international early childhood colleagues as well as learning from my classmates new connections as well.

My Daily Supports

My Daily Supports

When I first stop to think about my daily supports the first person that comes to mind is my wonderful husband Jairo.  He is the greatest support and has been a great supporter of me going back to get my Master's degree. 

The next support would be my children Jordan, Lauren and Hunter.  Hunter is the only one that still lives with us to see on daily basis, but the girls are in college and I either talk or text them daily.  They are my everything.

My parents are alwasy there for me and I talk to my mother daily on the phone at least once if not more than once per day.  She is my greatest cheerleader and best friend.

Without these people I would not be near the person I am today.

At work I have a great support system within our Leadership Team at my office.  We have to support each other because in an office with 35 people there is always some type of drama going on and with out my fellow Leadership Team colleagues I would feel alone on an island.

My relationship with God provides the foundation for which all these other relationships are built and provide the opportunity to beat or survive any challenge that comes before me.

My Connection to Play

Play to me means outside and exploration.  I grew up on a farm in western Oklahoma and I spent hours outside playing in the dirt making mud pies and my other favorite was playing school with all of my dolls.  The following quotes I think are instrumental in my believes about play in my own personal life.

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

Dr. Seuss
US author & illustrator (1904 - 1991)

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go....

Dr. Seuss, Oh! The Places You'll Go!
US author & illustrator (1904 - 1991)

I have included pictures of the books that I loved to read and use to play school with my dolls and some good old fashion dirt to represent my play in making mud pies with the picture of the old tin dish set.  This dish set looks exactly like the set I had a child.  Great memories.

My parents always allowed me to play and dream of all the possibilities that would come to life over the course of my lifetime.  I was a very independent child and have grown to be an independent adult.  Play was critical for me to figure out what I wanted in my life.  I wanted to help people as a teacher, but what I did not know was I wanted to help many teachers of young children.  Play is still an important part of my life and I am a firm believer that play is a necessary task in everyone's life.  Play opens the door for exploration and opens the mind to be creative.  My parents allowed me to explore and play all day everyday. 

I think one of the greatest issues for children today is that they are not allowed to play outside because of parental fear of danger in our neighborhoods.  I think it is crtical in today's society that we afford children the opportunity to learn to play in safe settings.  Child care centers are the perfect place for children to have the ability to explore, dream and think about the possibilities.  I have worked to create an environment in my home where my children played, explored and dreamed.  It is amazing to me that today as 22, 20, and 18 year olds they still have dreams and play still plays a major role in their lives as young adults.  If we teach children to play they will play for LIFE!!!

 

Relationship Reflection

My best friend Dawn

 Relations are extremely important to me and I have a variety of friends from a variety of diffent facets of my life.  My best friend Dawn is very important to me and she means the world to me, she is like a sister to me.  I lost my sister 12 years ago and while no one could replace my sister Dawn feels like a sister.  My children call her Auntie Dawn and her children call me Aunt Jill.  She is extremely important to me.

College Friends

College Friends

 My husband Jairo and I met while working at a Mexican food restaurant 24 years ago and of the people working there at that time there are 9 couples that got married and all are still married over 20 years later.  We have remained friends with several of these couples over the years.  The challenges we have faced in maintaining these realtionships include we all have children of various ages and get busy in our daily lives so it takes special care to maintain these long term relationships.  I am proud that we have worked to keep these friendships alive and well.  Both pictures of college friends are couples from our work at Bobo's the Mexican food restrautant. 

The next picture of me and my middle child and baby daughter Lauren is us taking a picture of ourselves while looking at the ceiling at Graceland.  One of the things the characteristics of our relationship is that we always have lots of fun.  My husband and I worked hard to do lots of fun things with our children.  We are a fun group!

My and my daughter Lauren

Me and my friends from the Missouri Registry

My mom, me, my cousins Teresa and Joe and my mom's twin sister Aunt Jerry.

My Sister Jan

My friend Lezley and me

My best friend Kelly and me getting our Thunder on!!!

My Momtana Registry Friends

My dad, my son Hunter, my mom and me

Me and my son Hunter

My friend Denise from the Missouri Registry has become one of my very best friends and we started out really just being collegues that do the same type of work in different states.  We served on the National Registry Alliance board together, but our parternship has grown and strengthened into a personal friendship type of relationship.  This picture was taken last fall at the OKState vs Missouri game in Missouri.  My husband, my son and I went and stayed with Denise and attended the football game together. 

The next couple of pictures are of my family my mom is a twin and me and Aunt Jerry's children are really close and spend all holidays together.  We are a constant support system for each other.  Then there is a picture of my sister from 1999 about 11 months before she passed away.  I have worked really hard to keep her spirit alive for my children.  Aunt Jan meant the world to them, but they were 5, 7 and 9 when she passed away so they have distant memories of her and it is important to me to keep her alive for them.  It has been a challenge just because they were so young when she passed away, but it is very important for me and my family.

This is a picture of my friend Lezley and I at the football game from today.  We have been friends for about 8 years.  She is my best friend from Blanchard the town that I live in and my Blanchard relationships seem very different from the rest of my relationships.  In Blanchard I am just a mom, but all other relationships I am a mom and I have an identiy associated with my work as an early childhood professional.  





This picture was from this summer when the OKC Thunder was playing in the NBA Finals.  We dressed up at work to support our team.  Kelly is one of my best friends and she is a jewel.  We have a lot in common our kids are similar in age and we are at similar places in our lives.  She is already an empty nester, but she is my one friend that understands both of my worlds the one that I am mother of three children and she understands my passion for my work as an early childhood professional.

Me and my oldest daughter Jordan

My Montana Registry friends are a group of ladies that do similar work that I do for the state of Oklahoma in the state of Montana.  We have become distant friends because of our common interests in Registry work.  I am excited to get to see these ladies this coming week at The National Registry Alliance conference in Panama City Beach, Florida.

My daughters Jordan and Lauren



My husband Jairo and I

I am finishing up with the most critical relationships in my life and they are my family.  My parents, my husband and my children.  This is my sons senior year in high school and he is playing football, which is a very important part of our lives.  We are huge football fans for both high school football and college football.  I am so proud of him and you can tell by looking at the picture that my parents are too.  They live over an hour away from us, but they are so dedicated to my children that they rarely miss any of my kids important games, programs, or just come to show them support for whatever they need. 













My daughters are Gamma Phi Beta's at Oklahoma State University and Gamma Phi is very important to my family because my sister was a Gamma Phi so that is connection she and the girls have so that is part of the legacy she leaves for our family.


Lastly, my husband of 22 years Jairo is extremely important to me.  We are very fortunate that both of us have parents that have been married 40 plus years so they have been great role models for us and that they have shown us that marriage is hard work and you have to be committed to each other.  I am hopeful that we have been the same type of role model for our children.

The committment to my personal relationship have been key to the foundation for the realtionships I have developed as an early childhood professional.  I am public policy fanatic just as my blog states and our my work in early childhood has been the foundation for my public policy efforts.  Just like we have read about all week relationships between teacher and the family is critical as a foundation for high quality.  As a public policy advocate I have worked to seek funding for high quality early childhood programs and high quality relationships lies at the foundation.

When I think of Child Development

When I think of child development and how children learn the following quotes come to mind for me:

From there to here, from here to there, funny things everywhere--Dr. Seuss

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.  Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.--Dr. Seuss

A person's a person, no matter how small.--Dr. Seuss

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61105.Dr_Seuss

Do not to where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.--Ralph Waldo Emerson

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/ralph_waldo_emerson_3.html