Issues related to excellence and equity in the early childhood field

Through exploring the Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” website http://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work/, I have gained critical knowledge about the issues related to excellence and equity in the early childhood field. 

Harvard University partners with organizations on the ground, the Center promotes innovation in Brazil, Canada, and Mexico, as well as across a broader international platform to close the gaps in education and health associated with socioeconomic disadvantage impose enormous burdens on individuals, communities, and societies worldwide. 

Across Countries: Saving Brains

https://www.grandchallenges.ca/

The early years of a child’s life are critical for brain development, with more than one million new neural pathways formed every second during a child’s first 1,000 days. The adversity children face during this critical window in childhood – including poverty, poor health and nutrition, maltreatment, and insufficient opportunity to play and learn – disrupts this normal brain development, causing setbacks that last into adulthood. The enormity of this issue is clear: one in three children are falling behind on basic skills like learning to pay attention, playing well with others and learning the basics to be ready for school. In turn, this affects these children’s education, intelligence and income. Failure to nurture children and protect them from these risks erodes the right of millions of children to develop to their full potential. At scale, this translates into massive economic losses and reinforces cycles of poverty and adversity.

Saving Brains 

Saving Brains supports bold ideas to improve early brain and child development globally. The portfolio focuses on three areas of healthy development (health & nutrition, enrichment and protection) that, when addressed together, set up a child to reach his or her full potential. Saving Brains is a partnership of Grand Challenges Canada, Aga Khan Foundation Canada, the Bernard van Leer Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The ELMA Foundation, Grand Challenges Ethiopia, the Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal Foundation, the Palix Foundation, the UBS Optimus Foundation and World Vision Canada.

Saving Brains seeks bold ideas to promote health and nutrition, provide enrichment and nurturing and protect against maltreatment – the three components of healthy development that every child needs to thrive. Of great importance to Saving Brains is how to effectively integrate these needs and deliver them to the highest number of children in a sustainable manner.

1. Kidogo Early Years: Sustainable and scalable model of early childhood care and education for Kenya’s urban slums

Kidogo Early Years is a social enterprise that seeks to transform the trajectory of these young children by providing high-quality, affordable, early childhood care and education in urban slums. 

Their innovative “hub and spoke" model is based on a two-fold approach: first, establishing best-practice early childhood development (ECD) “hubs” with a holistic curriculum that nurtures healthy growth and development, with caregivers trained on the principles of ECD. 

 

Secondly, Kidogo works to improve the quality of local baby care centres through its micro-franchising program with local “mama-preneurs” that would be given a “business-in-a-box”, including relevant training materials, resources and support. 

    

Initially, Kidogo will establish two ECD “hub” centres and five micro-franchised “spokes", directly reaching over 250 children under the age of five, as they prove their business model. This approach aims to improve physical, psycho-social and cognitive indicators for the enrolled children, as well as contribute to improving economic opportunities for local women.

2.Novel SMS-Based Technology for Early Brain Development Support and Monitoring in Brazil

The lack of information flow from care providers to parents and vice versa in Brazil remains a systemic problem in the management of early childhood development. There is still a huge gap in parental knowledge of best practices; information is not targeted for recipient populations and feedback to care providers is missing. These communication issues prevent parents from having the tools to ensure the best brain development for their children, while care providers struggle with the timely identification of developmental challenges. 

This innovation answers the need for a scalable communication solution. Tá.Na.Hora Digital Health has developed an SMS message approach that allows for highly-customized, interactive engagement on early child development. These programs would initially provide valuable information to new mothers, send reminders, track development milestones of the child and help manage development of at-risk children. This financially sustainable approach taps into the high cell phone permeation in Brazil and the ubiquitous nature of SMS communication.

3. Nutrient supplements beginning in the first trimester of pregnancy to improve newborn brain outcomes in Haiti

A new formulation of small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS), which replaces some milk powder, peanut and sugar ingredients with egg powder and has an improved nutritional profile, will be tested with mothers beginning in the first trimester of pregnancy. Results anticipated include positive anthropometric and structural brain outcomes in Haitian newborns. Non-invasive intracranial ultrasound neuro-imaging will be used to assess infant brain development.

Through the Development Innovation Fund Health, Grand Challenges Canada provided $16.8 million CAD to 13 projects funded through the focus phase of the Saving Brains program, which sought to better define the long-term impact of known early life interventions and the return on investment in potential interventions with respect to human capital.

Grand Challenges Canada also provided $18 million CAD to 35 proof-of-concept and 7 Transition To Scale projects funded through the solutions phase of the Saving Brains program, which seeks innovative products, services, policies and implementation models to nurture and protect early brain development. These projects were implemented in 26 countries and leveraged an additional $11.6 million in funding.

Saving Brains seeks bold ideas with real-world impact that also have the potential to be scaled up sustainably. By the end of the funding period, each project is expected to demonstrate proof of concept, i.e., provide evidence of impact on child development in a controlled or limited setting, and/or that it has reduced a barrier to impact and provided evidence of demand for the innovation. To this end, innovative approaches and sound evaluation are expected to test how the intervention should be optimized to equitably reach the highest number of girls and boys, to have the most impact on each child reached, and to sustain impact at scale. Innovators are required to take into account gender equality considerations, environmental impact and governance structures that can impede or assist the impact of their solution.