Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National Level

Dear classmates,

My ECE community is recent. The early childhood policy is dated in the year 2011 with an emphasis on eradication of poverty and nutrition especially in rural areas. The National ECD Program is centered on the eradication of malnutrition even if other areas of early childhood development are also being developed.
As said in my previous blog post, the roles one can take in my community would be in the National ECD Program, in the ECD section of UNICEF and in the non government organization Imbuto Foundation, which are on the top of institutions acting in this field.
Currently, these organizations do not have available jobs opportunities.
I would be interested in being a consultant for the ECE in my community, by helping ECD centers, in the urban areas, train their caregivers based on the knowledge acquired with my masters courses, waiting for any job opportunity.

Exploring Roles in the Early Childhood Development Community: Local and State Levels

My country Rwanda mainly have three local and state organizations that are in charge of the Early Childhood Field:

1.      The National Early Childhood Development Program (NECPD) has the general mission to coordinate all interventions that support adequate early childhood development for children, from their conception to 6 years of age, as outlined in the ECD policy. The National ECD Policy and a five-year Strategic Plan were revised in 2016, and costed and endorsed by the Cabinet in May 2016. These two policies set out key cross sectoral interventions covering child health and nutrition, access to safe water and sanitation, hygiene, early childhood education, child protection and social protection. These interventions aim to develop ‘children’s full sensory-motor, social-emotional and cognitive-language potential from conception to the age of six years (Unicef, 2018, p.33).

2.      The “Imbuto Foundation” through which was created in 2013 by her Excellency Mrs Jeannette Kagame the Early Childhood Development and Family program, to support the holistic development of children aged 0 to 6 years old. The goal of the program is to ensure that children are intellectually stimulated, healthy and safe, while their families and communities are trained to become nurturing caregivers.
The ECD&Family program is implemented in the following approaches:
• Early Childhood Development centers (3 to 6 years old)
• Home-based services (3 to 6 years old)
• Home-visits (0 to 3 years old)
Through this project:
• 16 functional ECD centers have been established in 15 Districts,
• Over 14,000 children have enrolled in the established ECD centers (Imbuto Foundation, 2019).

3.      The Unicef supported the Government of Rwanda in developing its ECD Policy and Strategic Plan in 2011 which aims to promote the holistic development of all children in Rwanda through the provision of integrated health, nutritional, early stimulation and learning, and protection services to families, communities and children between 0 to 6 years (Unicef, 2019).

At the present time, there is no job opportunities available in these organizations. There are very few consultants in this field. I think I would want to become one in the objective to teach caregivers in different early childhood development settings in the urban areas.

References

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Rwanda, 2018. National Early Childhood Development Program.

https://www.unicef.org/rwanda/RWA_resources_sitansummary.pdf

Imbuto Foundation, 2019

http://www.imbutofoundation.org/-Education-Programmes-.html

Unicef, 2019

https://www.unicef.org/rwanda/ecd.html

Welcome to my blog

Dr Lucia and classmates,

Welcome to my blog.
I am glad to be with you on this journey for the well- being of children.

Marlene.

Far From Being a Goodbye

Dear Classmates,

Eight weeks seemed a long time to go when we started but they were not. I was privileged to know you, to share experiences with you, and discuss through the weeks. If God allows, we will meet for real in this world. Hopefully we will be still together in the remaining courses. In the meantime, keep well and God bless you.

To our teacher, as i once said, your kindness and your understanding means a lot to me. God bless you really.

Marlene.

The Adjourning Phase

Hello Classmates,

After reflection, i realized that every group i was part of did not get together to celebrate the achievement of agreed goals, and yet i consider it to be very important to celebrate. "The team leader should ensure that there is time for the team to celebrate the success of the project and capture best practices for future use. (Or, if it was not a successful project - to evaluate what happened and capture lessons learned for future projects). This also provides the team the opportunity to say good-bye to each other and wish each other luck as they pursue their next endeavour"(Abudi. 2010).

I think that groups that are hard to leave, are the ones characterized by warmth.

While working on my master's degree in this program, the people that were difficult to adjourn from are the teachers because there is a bit of a personal relationship that you have, for example, when you did not submit assignment you explain what happened in your life. The attention and willingness to help you complete your courses, brings warmth that everyone needs while facing the challenges of life. I say thank you to all the teachers but also to my classmates. You are all great people.

References

Abudi. 2010. The Five Stages of Team Development. A Case Study.

https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.php

Conflict Resolution

Dear Classmates,

A recent disagreement i recently experience is in my personal life, with my husband. We would not manage to resolve a problem together. Our communication had been in- existent with time to avoid conflicts.

We started to see a marriage counselor who taught us how to communicate effectively by avoiding a judgmental approach which brings defensiveness, and by trying to be more vulnerable when expressing our feelings or concern. It is still new to us, but it brought a fresh new air in our marriage. Communicating effectively is an important thing. 

I can testify that effective communication reduced "violence" in our conversations and relationship, as of the NVC purpose states that it is important to create human connections that empower compassionate giving and receiving (NVC. Concepts). Now when we make an effort not to judge one another, we demonstrate compassion.


Reference

Nonviolent Communication. http://www.cnvc.org/Training/NVC-Concepts

Who Am I as a Communicator ?

Hello Classmates,

This week, my husband and my son evaluated my communication skills. My communication anxiety is high and i kind of knew my difficulties to express myself even in small groups. It did not surprised me but it confirmed what i knew and put words on it.
My verbal aggressiveness is low and my listening is action- oriented for them when i thought that i am a people- oriented listener. I liked this because if i manage to mix the two in my communication skills, it would be a good mixture based on empathy and efficiency (Rubin, Rubin, Graham. 2009).

The main thing i have to focus on is how to deal with anxiety, if i want to be a competent communicator in the field of Early Childhood Education. Understanding and addressing anxiety is the first thing to do, and knowing the methods of delivery of the message you have, is the second thing (O'Hair & Wiemann, 2015, p. 404 & 408).
I also need to adjust my listening habits because when someone is a people- oriented listener, it can interfere proper judgement because we tend to be very trusting of others (Rubin, Rubin, Graham. 2009).

References

Rubin, R. B., Rubin, A. M., Graham, E. E., Perse, E. M., & Seibold, D. R. (Eds.) (2009). Communication research measures II: A sourcebook. New York: Routledge.

• "Listening Styles Profile-16"

O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J. (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.