week 5 - global initiatives project

I explored the Harvard website about global initiatives project. This is a very informative and helpful website for early childhood educators. The three projects that I would like to discuss included: Zambian Early Childhood Development Project, Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância Project and Children & Crisis Project.

Zambian Early Childhood Development Project is a collaborative project to measure the effects of an ongoing anti-malaria initiative on children’s development in Zambia. It is one of the poorest countries in the world with 13 million people with an average income of USD1500 in 2008. Mortality rate of children under age 5 is 12%. (World Bank 2010) The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project (ZECDP) was a coordinated project by Zambian Ministry of Education, the Examination Council of Zambia, UNICEF, the University of Zambia and Harvard University Center in 2009.  (Gunther Fink & Beatrice Matafwali & Corrina Moucheraud & Stephanie Simons Zuilkowski, 2009) The project was “to determine the effect of early childhood environment, health and education on children’s development before and throughout their schooling careers.

The Children and Crisis Project is a joint project by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center at Harvard School of Public Health. Its objective is “to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration incorporating a science-based, developmental perspective into the assessment and management of child well-being in a range of natural and man-made crises, focusing on both immediate circumstances and long term adaptation.”

The Nucleo Ciencia Pela Infancia Project is collaborated by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American studies at Harvard University, Fundacao Maria Cecillia Souto Vidigal, the Faculty of Medicine at the Medicine at the University of São Paulo, and Insper. The objectives are to use scientific approach in child health and development to help develop stronger policies and provide larger investment to benefit young children and their families in Brazil.

 

References

Fink G., Matafwali B., Moucheraud C., Simons S., 2009, The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project, 2010 Assessment Final Report, Harvard University’s Global Children’s Initiative website, extracted from http://developingchild_harvard_edu/initiatives/global_initiative

 

Global children’s Initiative of Harvard University, 2014, extracted from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/