Childhood Poverty

           Over 600 million children worldwide live in absolute poverty - an estimated 1 in 4. In many countries, rates are much higher with over 60 percent of children living in households with incomes below international poverty lines. Over 10 million children under five still die every year from preventable diseases - the vast majority of them in developing countries. As one of the most powerless groups in society, children often bear the physical and emotional costs of poverty (www.childhoodpoverty.org).  

One of these costs is abuse, both physical and mental. This week, I listened to Delfena Mitchell speak. She is the Director of the Liberty Children’s Home, on the outskirts of Belize City. This program opened in the summer of 2005 and is licensed to house up to 40 children, predominantly between birth to 5 years of age. However, older children who have younger siblings in care are and will always be accommodated. All of the children at the care center have been abandoned, abused or orphaned and many have disabilities, special needs or are HIV positive (www.worldforumfoundation.org). While listening to Delfena speak, she really tugged at my heartstrings when she spoke of one of the boys, named Joe, in the Children’s Home. Joe had come with his six older siblings, and was so severely neglected and abused that he hadn’t spoken at all for a whole year. The first time he did speak was with Delfena during an outing riding horses. He told her of what he had come from, how he had been abused, seen his sister abused, and had to hide under his bed to eat so that his food wouldn’t be taken by the other children or adults.

It is so hard for me to wrap my mind around abusing a defenseless child, or stealing what little food they have right out of their hands. Belize is not the only place that this happens, and there are too many children living like this in poverty. Throughout my career, I have seen children and adults living in poverty not only abroad, but in the United States as well. This is something that is very close to our own home, and even your neighbor or friend at work could be experiencing these hardships.

References

Mitchell, D. (2013, March 23). Episode 3: Delfena Mitchell [Audio Podcast]. Retrieved from http://worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wp/current-work/world-forum-radio/

www.childhoodpoverty.org

www.worldforumfoundation.org



Sharing Web Resources



I chose to select the National Association of Early Childhood Teachers, or NAECTE for short. Their website can be found at www.NAECTE.org. I chose this website because I, myself, am an Early Childhood Teacher and was drawn to their goals and purpose.

Their purposes are as follows:

• To promote the professional growth of our membership
• To discuss educational issues specific to our membership
• To advocate for improvements in early childhood teacher education
• Provide a forum for consideration of issues and concerns of interest to educators of early childhood teacher educators
• Provide a communication network for early childhood teacher educators
• Facilitate the interchange of information and ideas about research and practice
• Use, as vehicles, the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, conferences, resolutions, position papers, and other publications
• Cooperate with other national and international organizations concerned with the study and education of young children

In looking over their Winter 2013 newsletter, I found their theme for the upcoming spring conference to be interesting. The theme of the conference is Fostering Resiliency, Agency, and Advocacy in Early Childhood Teacher Candidates. This is the exact topic I chose to write about in this week’s discussion, so it was neat for me to also see this big organization also concerned with preparing our future educators with the necessary tools to become strong advocates for their children.

Professional Contacts

During my time teaching in Ghana, Africa I made some great friends and supports in the teachers that I worked with. I would love to use them for this assignment, and still have their email information. Unfortunately, the internet connections in Ghana vary day by day. A lot of times service will go in and out making it hard to have time sensitive conversations. Because of this, I will be participating in the World Forum podcasts to communicate and learn from educators abroad.

The Early Childhood website I have chosen to explore and study is the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators. I chose to study this website because the name was most appealing to me, and after looking at the website found it to be something I was interested in and would like to know more about. I was originally going to choose the NAEYC, but am a member and am familiar with their positions and work, so wanted to choose an association I was not familiar with.