Getting Ready—Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

The Global Alliance of NAEYC has e-mail addresses for early childhood professionals worldwide:

http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance

Unicef, United for children, are working in every country you can think of to help improve the lives of children.  You can research what they are doing by country or as a whole.  The site offers many resources.  You can register with most any social media you are familiar with to keep involved with what they are doing. I registered to become a fan on Face book.  They have a link titled “The State of the World’s Children”, It features videos, panels article from real people sharing information about children rights, policy, health etc...from world.  

UNICEF has local organizations and representatives worldwide. Check out the country specific links and contact a local representative:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html

I am familiar with NAEYC however, I did not know about their contacts outside of the U.S.  I joined TORCH, The Online Resource Center Headquarters.  The online community resources to help you better understand and implement the NAEYC accreditation criteria.  Most of the questions I read came from professionals living in the States.  I find many of the question and answers to actually be useful to me.

 

After exploring many of the sites and registering for a few of the newsletters I chose the following to full engulf myself in.   

National Black Child Development Institute

http://nbcdi.org/

(Newsletter: http://nbcdi.org/support/sign-up-for-nbcdi-newsletters/ )

Totally personal reasons.  As an African American mother and teacher it is important for me to state informed and connected.

National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators

http://www.naecte.org/

(Newsletter: http://www.naecte.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=29 )

I have been a Early Childhood Professional for ten years.

Summer letter from the president, Discussing the Summer Conference taken place in RI, It has a nice write up about teacher research explaining who performs  the research and the purpose for the research.

International Child Resource Institute

http://www.icrichild.org/

(Review also the international projects at: http://www.icrichild.org/kenya ) Click on the International Projects tab at the top to see a list of the available projects.

I truly believe “it takes a village”.  And when I open up this site the front page of the website reads “Empowering the Village to Raise The Child”.

State it’s mission is to improve live of children and families around the world.  In a world where so many children do not have basic human rights.

"Without You..."

"My Support"

          Being born into a large family of sisters I grow up surrounded by others who always having someone around to help me with one thing or another.  Helping me with my homework to French braiding my hair.  I didn’t realize how important that support was until I moved from the East coast to the west coast with my husband and four year old daughter.  It was a very exciting and adventures time for us.  Leaving behind the home, family and friends that was my life for half of my life.  No longer having the support I had come to expect was shocking.  Having one of my sisters stop in so that I could go to the market while my daughter was napping was a thing of the past.  No more dropping her off at my older sister’s house for Friday night date night.  No more calling one of my sisters every morning to see whos house we were having coffee at.  No more stopping by my Aunt's house after church for dinner or dessert.  To make matters more tring my husband's work schedule requires him to be away from home 24-72 hours at a time, and often requires him to work on holidays.  We quickly learned to depend on each other.  I would never have been able to make it with out my husband constant support.  Setting up my morning coffee, leaving for work a little earlier on Sundays so that he can surprise me with a copy of the local news paper.  Keeping me company on the phone while I wait for my teenager to get home.  And always tell me I can do whatever I set out to do. 

I had to decide what to do now that I didn't have a all ready made supportive environment around me.  I had to decide it didn't matter where I am, I can create a supportive environment. Understanding that a supportive environment can be people, or it can be things that I surround myself with making my living or work environment supportive.

Creating a supportive environment to assist me in my journey of personal growth.  I also learned that I needed to create a supportive environment by being selective about the things that I feed my mind with like books I read, television I watch and web sites I visit.

24 years after that first move I have several factors within my daily environment that supports me and gives me strength each day.