Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

     When I was a single mother, I had no knowledge of all most of the resources available to single mothers today.  WIC is one such organization.  It is set up to assist Women, Infants, and Children offering nutritional education and vouchers for nutritious foods for pregnant and breast-feeding mothers.  They also serve infants and children under five year of age who are of the low income and those nutritionally at-risk.  The Child and Family Resource Center in Manhattan is the location for getting assistance.

     SNAP/Supplemental Nutrition Program provides qualifying households with food benefits, healthy diet and education on food preparation.  In Kansas, it is called the Food Assistance Program “serves as the first line of defense against hunger. It provides crucial support to elderly households, to low-income working households, to other low-income households that include the unemployed or disabled and to households transitioning from welfare to work. Food assistance customers can spend their benefits to buy eligible nutritious food and plants and seeds to grow food for their household to eat (dcf.ks.gov, 2012). 

     Another program that is active in Riley County Kansas is the Raising Riley Program that gives assistance and scholarships to children for day care.  This is a program endorsed by Smart Start of Kansas.  Smart Start is a program that collaborates with community-based grants through the Kansas Children’s Cabinet. 

     I chose these programs because they are programs that provide food assistance and childcare.  These three programs provide nutrition and education.  I know that there are many more programs but these are the ones that are closest to me, as I have worked with families who had to use them. 

     I would like to work for the Riley County Health Department in the WIC Program.  I would like to be a part of the teaching nutritional information and recipes for cooking wisely with the resources they have.  I have the experience and nutritional knowledge, without the paper degree, to teach in this program. For this reason I am looking into setting up a single mothers' ministry through my church.

References:

WIC/Riley County Health Department Retrieved from http://www.rcmhealth.org/services/wic

Food Assistance-Economic & Employment Services Retrieved from http://www.dcf.ks.gov/services/ees/Pages/Food/FoodAssistance.aspx

Early Childhood Associate Apprenticeship Program, Retrieved from http://www.kansasecaap.org/index.aspx?NID=80

 Early Education Advocate.pdf (7.364 KB)
I am not sure this will work but the link that wordle gave me did not work therefore I am trying this avenue.

Capstone Classmates

I want to express my thanks to all those who helped me get through the Wordle. I became so frustrated and scared that I would mess up this class, the last one. I know that the discussion post posted twice and I do not know why but it is there. I have learned so much through this process. Thank you to all classmates and a special thank you to Dr. Teri for all the assistance. I am still pretty nervous about the class but one step at a time will get us all through.

Passion for Early Childhood Studies

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I do not know why it will not work. I am working on getting it

to work. 

God Bless You One and All

I would like to wish all my colleagues, professors, and support team at Walden a blessed Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

Blog for Week 8 EDUC 6358

An explanation of your most passionate hope for your future as an early childhood professional and for the children and families with whom you work or will work.

Acknowledging early childhood education is crucial for young children proves that the importance of a trained person and one who is willing to share and accept new ideas and learn new ways of teaching.  I think keeping updated is important for all early childhood educators, knowing what research tells us and having contact with professionals. 

I want to be a person who helps educate the teachers of early childhood education, to be a presenter at seminars or workshops.  I would like to be a person who helps single parents find and learn how to use the resources to improve their lifestyle.
 

A brief to my colleagues:

I want to express my thanks to all of my colleagues for their support and communication.  I hope that this communication can continue past this class and the Capstone class.  I also want to express my appreciation to Dr. Shephard for her encouragement and assistance when things did not go as planned.  She has been great!

References:

Early Childhood Education/360 Solutions, 2012, Retrieved from

http://www.360-edu.com/early-childhood-education.htm

Impacts on Early Emotional Development

     I chose West Africa, particularly Guinea, much of my heart is still there.  The education system is far below standards.  When I was there, there were no public school; every child that did attend school had to pay a tuition fee.  There are a few good French school in the the larger villages but not in the small villages.  The article by Michele Akan Badarou relates that an organization from the Netherlands, with the support of other NGO partner’s schools called “learning Along Borders’ project”.  There is a new learning strategy; groups of eight are set together with a tutor from the students.   The students study the basic subjects along with technology, arts and science. 

     The education secretary of Forécariah Prefecture, Monsieur Souleymane Kaba, said, “This project has come just at the right time in order to integrate and keep each child, including refugee and displaced children, within a diversified and adapted education system.” (Badarou, M. 2010)

     The challenge is that this system of education is for a specific group of children, children in conflict-affected communities on both sides of the borders.  This does not include children inland.  In the large village where I lived had limited access to education, with tuition and transportation costly. 

      Another challenge is the Girl Child Health Issues; this is designed to be a protection for the girl in children in poor household have a high work burden of household chores.  The girl child’s time is restricted, leaving little time to develop interests of her own and reach full imaginative potential.  I have seen girls as young as five carrying baby sibling on their back, to free mother to do her work. 

     An UNICEF article points out that girl’s education is important, as educated girls are more interested in protecting themselves against HIV/AIDS, have healthier pregnancies with healthier children.  The campaign includes thirteen West African countries with six countries in Southern Asia (UNICEF, 2003).

     While in Africa, I saw children playing in the streets at school times, because their parents could not afford to send them to school.  I had a  little boy sit in the window of a broken down house across the street from my house-school.  He asked me many times if I could teach him.  The mission said ‘no”, time was a restricting issue.  My heart hurt for this child, he wanted to learn and the opportunity was not there or allowed. 

     When I left Africa, I donated three boxes of books to Save the Children to be used in a village that was working on teaching English.  I was asked to go to this village during our school break.  I was willing but then had to come home. 

References:

Badarou, Michele Akan, 2012, at a glance: Guinea, In Guinea, UNICEF supports an innovative school programme for children in conflict-affected communities Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/guinea_62302.html?p=printme

Ouagadougou, 2003, New York, UNICEF Launches Girls’ Education Initiative in Western and Central Africa, News Release,  Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/media/media_10944.htmlUNICEF Retrievced from:

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