My Conversation Partner

My conversation partner is Carmen Lica from Romania.  She works for the Step by Step Center for Education and Professional Development.  The Centre for Education and Professional Development is a non-governmental organization that was formed in 1998 to continue operating the Step by Step program, which was first implemented in Romania in 1994.  Mrs. Lica says that her organization provides training on early childhood education, protection of children, and care of infants and toddlers. 

Mrs. Lica said this organization helps children and families of poverty by giving trainings to their teachers and families and donating money to help support programs to benefit these families and children.  The Step by Step Center is doing a lot of good for children and their families.  I have learned that there is more poverty around the world than I realized.  I want to help as many families in this situation as I can.  Romania is home to a large population of people living in poverty.  Mrs. Lica told me that almost half of the population living in rural areas are poor people living in poverty.  If we all work together, maybe we can make a difference one child at a time.

National Head Start Association

I chose to focus on the National Head Start Association website.  Their web address is http://www.nhsa.org/  The focus of this website is to offer conferences, professional development, and other services to it's members.  It also provides news and ways to become an advocate for Head Start. 

I was reading through the blog on the website and parents were posting about how they loved the Head Start program.  One parent's story caught my attention.  She was concerned because her daughter was not talking, only mumbled, and the doctor said it was normal.  When she sent her daughter to headstart, they discovered that the daughter was deaf in one ear.  She had to have surgery and did speech therapy through headstart for two years.  When her daughter started kindergarten, she was talking, could be understood, and was doing great.  Had the child not gotten enrolled in headstart, she would have started kindergarten and nobody would have known anything was wrong until it was too late.  This story really caught my attention because being in the early childhood field, we observe these things and have all kinds of opportunities to help children and families.  I enjoyed reading all of the success stories on this website.

Expanding Resources

Establishing contacts with professionals in other countries sounds like a great idea.  It is a good way to expand our resources.  However, I have found it very difficult to locate and communicate with people from other countries.  Most of my emails have came back to me, thinking it is spam.  I was able to communicate with Mrs. Carmin Lica from Romania.  She is in involved with Step by Step Centre for Education and Professional Development.  I also made contact with Kate Yocum.  She used to teach education in Finland, but now lives in the United States.  I sent an email to Mrs. Eva-Hammes-Di Bernardo of the German National Committe for Early Childhood Education in Germany.  I am still waiting to hear back from her.  This assignment was really tough.  I am hoping that I do not have to pick the alternate option.

The website I decided to look at was the National Headstart Association.  I choose this website because I work for headstart and thought it could help me on my job.  The website is very imformative.  It has all kinds of opportunities for workshops and conferences.  I believe this website is a very good one.  The link is http://www.nhsa.org/