Since I was unable to establish contact with early childhood professionals that expand outside the United States I decided to work with this week’s alternative assignment and share some of my personal thoughts and insights gained from reading information on children families and poverty. The website Childhoodpoverty.org (2012) or CHIP focuses on a few different countries like China, Kyrgystan and Mongolia. My insights focused on the country of China.
As I explored the website I came across the “CHIP Rationale” to discover some of the general assumptions on children and poverty. I found information that helped me change my vision from a fantasy of children and poverty to the reality of children and poverty living in these countries. The first rational information that became new to me mentioned that some policies set forth to "reduce poverty” (Childhoodpoverty.org 2012) may not positively affect poverty rates and can make matters worse. I was surprised by this rational information because in the fantasy world I would think a policy meant for children and families put into play always makes matters and circumstances better. However the reality of a policy put into place for children and their families living in situations of poverty turns out better for some family matters and worse situations for others. I became slightly unhappy to realize that policies meant to help families, does not necessarily support them all.
I also read case studies on two children and their family living situations in different areas of china. These case studies concerned children younger than 15 years old. These children shared their stories of their parents struggling and working hard to provide better lives for their children’s futures and mainly education matters. The fantasy of these stories shows that all children have the opportunity to go to school and be successful. The reality of these stories and web site information shows that some children have little opportunities to reach or even complete the beginning education level like primary school. The child Xiao Bo mentions his father’s highest level of education as completing middle school. I began to understand that these cases are just a few of many around the world.
The last insight I gained is just by looking at the photos under the photo gallery. The fantasy of this link is reading the stories (or case studies) knowing and visualizing their circumstances on how the children and family are living and learning, and the reality of the photos of family and children living and learning speaks for itself.
Overall I believe the insights that I gained challenged my vision on children, families and poverty. I think the difference of my insights before exploring this website gained is not only reading and understanding the information I come across but also coming to a realization that these events are still happening. I provided a link list below to a few of my findings.
Reference Links
3 comments:
Hey Ms. Jay,
I am hoping to hear from someone one of these days that I contacted. We are so used to our high-tech gadgets that we tend to forget that not everyone in the world is so fortunate to have these things. Some days I wonder if they are really worth it, especially after looking at those children in Mongolia, China, and India.
Lori,
I think I'm going to try and contact an earlychildhood professional a different way if I don't hear anything from them soon through email. I know what you mean when I personally realize that some children are more fortunate with material things than basic needs like food.
Jenneath,
I was beginning to think that I was the only person who has not heard from their international contact. I am not giving up though, hopefully I will hear from someone soon. Glad we had an alternative to choose from. Poverty is an issue that is too surreal to me because I grew up in poverty and worked very hard to overcome a lot. I think when a person grows up in poverty, there tend to be a greater appreciation for the least little thing in life.
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