Poverty in Russia

For this Blog assignment I decided to look at childhood poverty in Russia. Russia is in the spotlight right now because of the upcoming Olympic events; therefore I was interested to see where this country stood on poverty. The first insight that I found to be a profound statistic is that the highest rate of poverty and deterioration is that of the age group 0-14yrs. The children, the future of their country, are living in deteriorating, poverty stricken environments. During these young years is where development is the most vital and the children are growing up in poor environments with an idea that this is the norm. The second insight that I found to be interesting is that parents are actually looking at poverty rates and considering that having more than one child could be a factor. Because of this parents are electing to not have more than one child. This can and will have a huge impact on the future of their society. The impact on the country’s demographics could be irreversible. There also seems to be an assumption by the policy makers that policy and practices that will work for adults will also help the children. It seems as though the elderly are better protected from poverty then the children in this country. To me this article states that the key component that is missing is the idea that the children are the future of this country and it is already off to a really bad start.

No matter what country you are in the children need to be at the top of your priority list. They are the future policy makers, leaders, and educators of society and when left to such deteriorating environments their development is negatively affected. We must promote healthy and nurturing environments that will ensure the progression of positive development.

Reference

http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/media_3372.html

Web Resources

http://www.zerotothree.org/

The beginning stages of life are the most vital in relation to development. The Zero to Three organization is a non-profit organization put together to bring knowledge and resources to families, educators, professionals, and policy makers to help them further their knowledge in the development of children from birth to three years of age. This organization also emphasizes the importance of the role of the adults in a child’s life in these stages.

All of the areas that this website covers are vital to the development; however the one area that caught my eye is that they cover the subject of maltreatment. This is more common in infants and young children and the Zero to Three organization explains how this affects their growth and development. This brought to mind a documentary that I had watched about feral children. This story that I have posted below shows how a child who was severely abused and neglected had missed important milestones in language development and it permanently affected her. 

There are a lot of tools on this website for various areas of development. The main goal of this organization is to bring awareness to the importance of the first three years. These vital developmental years can have direct effect on the future of the child, even into adulthood.

Establishing Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources

I have contacted Australia and Germany. I chose Australia because it is a country I have always wanted to learn more about. I selected Germany because of an experience I had as a little girl. My father sponsored a man from Germany when I was about 5 years old and he stayed with us in our home for a few weeks. I was very intrigued by his presence in my home and I wanted to learn more. I am interested to see how these contacts expand my knowledge in the Early Childhood field outside of the US.
For expanding my resources I chose to work with the Zero to Three website. This is a website that I have used in the past but I hope to dive deeper into the knowledge they provide. I have four children of my own and I feel this website will not only encourage my further knowledge for my educational field but also for my own personal use as well. You can never have too many resources or enough education when it comes to children. The world around us is constantly changing, evolving and so our practices should be doing so as well. As an educator it is my job to keep up with the changing world and learn new tools for implementing proper practices.