April 2021 Newsletter
SEL in the early years
From Your Editor-of-the-Month
Nicholas Carlisle
Welcome to the April edition of the Karanga newsletter! As this month’s editor I’ve chosen a theme which is close to my heart – social and emotional learning in the early years.
When I launched the Power of Zero campaign I had a hunch that the early years were important. I’m now a convert to the cause. The window of time before the age of eight is the best opportunity we have to support a child’s social and emotional development and to teach them values that will last into middle-age and beyond.
An OECD report from 2020 says it well. “Starting behind in the early years means staying behind – for individual children and for an education system as a whole. A child’s development in the first few years of life significantly predicts his or her later success in education and ongoing levels of happiness and well-being. The most effective investment governments can make to enhance education and later life outcomes is to provide a strong start in children’s early years.” (The International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study (IELS) for 2020)
This month’s newsletter features some of the great social and emotional programs being created by Karanga steering committee members for young children, along with the usual round up of Karanga news. I hope you enjoy reading these pieces as much as I enjoyed talking to the writers!
Nicholas Carlisle
Design with Purpose for the Early Years
When humanitarian disasters strike, it is often the youngest children who are the most at risk. Danielle de la Fuente, CEO of the Amal Alliance, describes how her organization engages human-centered design thinking to design social and emotional programs for young children living through extreme situations.
Childhood has gone online.
SEL may be our best response.
Nicholas Carlisle, CEO of Power of Zero, reflects upon this milestone year in which the majority of children across the world spent the majority of their waking hours interacting with a digital device. As research reveals the potential impact on young children’s psychological well-being, we need more than ever to invest in their social and emotional learning.
We need to rethink early education
for a post-COVID world
If we are to successfully recalibrate our values as a world, we must begin with the children, and the younger the better. Leslee Udwin is the founder and CEO of Think Equal – a non-profit registered in both UK and USA which aims to promote system change in education to bring Social and Emotional Learning front and centre as the core purpose of Early Childhood Education across the globe.
Thanks to everyone who joined us for March's SEL Leadership conversation. The recording will be up on our YouTube channel shortly. May's conversation will be between three outstanding education leaders Barbara Holzapfel (Vice President, Microsoft Education; Seattle, USA), Patricia Vazquez (Director of International Cooperation, Radix Education; Mexico City, Mexico) and Jigyasa Labroo (Co-Founder and CEO, Slam Out Loud; Delhi, India). They will be talking about how female leaders and female educator networks are influencing the implementation of SEL to improve learning for not only girls, but for all learners.
Register here: http://khlink.net/RTMay12
How Does Your Dignity Feel?, a coloring book and poem by Global Dignity, is now available in 14 languages.
The book helps children ages 5-9 understand what dignity is and what dignity looks like in action. When kids use dignity principles, they gain self-confidence, better resolve conflict and can create a positive school culture.
All languages are available to download, print and color for free, here.
Global Dignity teaches the concept of dignity—the inherent, equal worth of all people—to promote inclusion, equality and a greater sense of our shared humanity. globaldignity.org.
Events and Publications of Interest
The Charter for Compassion is offering compassionate integrity training starting Thursday April 29, 2021 and repeating later in the year.
https://charterforcompassion.org/compassionate-integrity-training
A Compassionate Integrity Training course specifically for humanitarian responders is being offered by an affiliate organization called "Humanity CIT." The course starts in late May. More information can be found here:
Thrive Report 2020 – (Download)
Are we enabling our young adults to thrive in life? Dream a Dream's learnings suggests that Thriving is beyond resilience, where individuals are not simply bouncing back from problems but also taking advantage of new life opportunities, finding meaning in life, reconstructing their selves, and even engaging in meaningful activities. This report captures the stories of thriving of our young people. Their journeys help us understand how young adults thrive and succeed despite the adversities that they go through in their lives and provides us with strong evidence that the life skills approach is an enabler helping young people thrive.
Role of Dream a Dream in promoting life skills education for children from low-resourced schools in urban India: A Case Study (Download)
This case study about Dream a Dream analyzes the organizational approach in imparting life skills to children from low-resourced schools in urban India. The research seeks to understand the different approaches adopted by NGOs to impart life skills training and how it leads to transformative social change at an individual level.
Implementing Education Reform: Is there a “Secret Sauce”? (Download)
This report from Dream a Dream explores whether cross-country research can help uncover a “secret sauce” to implementing sustainable education reform. It probes reform journeys across three nations (Finland, Portugal, and Canada) with a thorny question: what are the greatest barriers to, and the key enablers of, sustainable education reform?
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“What if we no longer see ourselves based on what we look like, what religion we practice, or where we live...but by what we value…Humanity, kindness, an innate sense of our connection to each other. And a belief that we are guardians, not just of our home and planet, but of each other.”
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Karanga is an alliance of individuals and organizations committed to advocating for and supporting social and emotional learning programs within formal and non-formal education. Our vision is of a thriving world where all learners are enabled with the skills to succeed in school, work, and life.