Through the eyes of our children - part 2

Alanna beamed as she told us how a grandmother, unknown to her, stopped her in the hall of the local community centre and asked with obvious awe, "Have you seen the displays from the children?"

For two weeks, wildly creative displays transformed the public library, the community centre and City Hall. The art and writing was much more than a celebration of what children are capable of accomplishing - they were powerful, visual displays of the voices of children - their perspective about what community means to them.

“If we allowed children to show us what they can do rather that merely accepting what they usually do, I feel certain we would be in for some grand surprises.”   Mem Fox

Sixteen child care programs participated in a comprehensive Reggio Emilia inspired project - supported by early childhood care and education instructors Alanna Miller and Theresa Gereluk. Children (from toddlers to 12 years old) led their care providers along a unique and collaborative learning journey to express their thoughts about "community." Most centres took children on walking field trips to see what they noticed, what they were interested in and what was important to them. From there, the children's educational odyssey emerged as they asked questions, explored certain areas and expressed themselves through play and art.

In this small, resource dependent city some common themes seemed to emerge; trucks, fishing and the steam train. How the children depicted these things shed light on how these elements affect their lives.

 

Issues such as housing, the built environment, community identity and "village" relationships emerged into stories, 3-D objects made from recyclables and even rice krispie squares!

Children expressed important aspects of their lives. "I live at Mom's house, it's too long to walk. On bus we go to Ahousaht, its too long to walk. We go on a boat past Nanaimo." Delylah

In one situation, the caregivers noticed how more in-tuned with community events the children were. For example, on a walk the conversation led to discussing a recent apartment fire tragedy.  The children came up with the idea to stop at the grocery store to get food for the families who were now out of their homes. Social responsibility requires being connected to one's community.

Children became incredibly enthusiastic about their ideas being listened to and their ideas taking shape into displays for the whole community to see. This interactive aquarium stood outside the Mayor's office beckoning City staff to take a peak at the stories that the children told about the environments they highly value.

What are the issues that children in your community would highlight?

How can we increase opportunities for a child to actively shaping his or her own learning?

How can we, as adults, apply what we hear from children to community planning and policy making?

RTV #6 - Welcome to our Community, Little One!

A Year of Raising the Village: Week #6 


Families in the USA can receive a welcome letter for their newborn baby direct from the White House. What a keepsake! Imagine how that must inspire a sense of belonging in a young family, not to mention for the child as he or she grows up. We all need to feel a sense of belonging to our families, to our communities and to our culture.

Read more about how to get a letter from the president here: How to Get Congratulations From the White House | eHow.com 

A “closer to home” approach and with, perhaps, a little more intimacy – is for a community to send a welcome letter to local newborn babies.

Here is an excerpt of one that we have seen;

“Welcome to our community little one!

Your family will be your teachers in life. By talking to you, by holding you and by singing to you, your family will give you the best start possible.”

The letter could be “on request” like the White House letter or by working with the hospital, public health department or doctors who are responsible for early baby care. A welcome letter could also accompany a book as a gift from the community delivered on a first home visit.  Find out who the community partners are that have the most contact with families with newborns in your community.  Learn how to work together to celebrate a new citizen.

Village Raising Question

What do you do to welcome newborns?

RTV #5 - CREATE a relationship with children and nature- early on!

Photo copyright T.Dewar

A Year of Raising the Village: Week #5 

Urgently, we need to create a world fit for children, with social and economic systems that constitute a culture of respect for children and their planetary habitat.

Coming to grips with future loss, we must link Earth and Child, self-interest with group survival and child health to global health.

These excerpts come from a significant new essay, The Right to a Future, written by Raffi Cavoukian, founder of the Centre for Child Honouring, singer, author, and children's champion. This essay presents an Earth & Child lens as a way to convey and address climate threat.

Regardless of what scientific research you follow around climate change – there are critical questions to ask of our communities. Such as... What kind of relationship do we want to hold with the earth? What kind of relationship do we empower between our children and nature? What can our village raising groups do?

Start with opening dialogue on the topic...

• Talk about the footprint or legacy you want to leave (as individuals, families, businesses, organizations and communities).
• Talk about children’s call for a sustainable future. What does this look like?
• Talk about the rich connection and relationship between respecting children and nature.
• Work together to grow systems that respect a generation of Earth Stewards and a world fit for children!

To view the full essay, The Right to a Future, go to http://childhonouring.org/newsupdates.html?item=109


Village Raising Tip: Children can move us into a sustainable future! Join a grassroots or community initiative that is inspired by children and youth and intent on building communities and relationships that help them thrive.

Watch for a future blog re; the children and nature alliance and ways to foster the relationship between children and nature.
http://www.childnature.ca

Honouring Children - The Way to Restore Humane Communities and Our Ecosystems.

A Raising the Village interview with Raffi.


Child Honouring is a movement, one that views honouring children as the best way to create sustainable, peacemaking societies. This message is brought forward by long time child champion Raffi Cavoukian. Raffi’s many accomplishments and accolades include an United Nations’ Earth Achievement Award, two honorary degrees, and the Order of Canada and British Columbia. Let’s not forget his highly awarded career as a musician with an independent record label that has sold over 15 million cds, books & dvds worldwide earning him Juno and Gemini awards as well as Grammy nominations. In addition, Raffi tirelessly advocates for children and our ecosystems, work which has connected him with such humanitarians as the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, David Suzuki and Jane Goodall (to name but a few). Raising the Village was honoured to spend some time with Raffi and learn first hand more about the concept of Child Honouring.

As a musician, how did you make the decision to no longer perform for children directly but instead to channel your music, your voice, your purpose and passion towards educators, decision makers and parents/families?

It was a gradual process of realizing two things: first, I’d accomplished everything in children’s music I’d ever imagined and more and second, that advancing Child Honouring as a universal ethic worldwide would require all my energies. So I have devoted my time to developing the vision and communicating it in word, image, and new songs like “It Takes A Village” and “Turn This World Around”.

Where does the philosophy of Child Honouring come from? Is there any correlation to your own childhood (i.e. how were you honoured as child? Where and how did you find your voice)?

My childhood, like those of others, provided the soil which grew the possibilities of my adult life. As a child, though I was certainly loved, I wasn’t respected for who I felt I was; my early years experience was a great struggle that required considerable emotional growth work later on.

Child Honouring, the vision, woke me from a sound sleep on a Sunday morning in 1997, and it came as a holistic vision that I knew was to be the work of the rest of my life. I quickly sensed an integrated framework for simultaneously restoring human communities and the ecosystems which give and support our lives.

What personally brings you a “sense of community”?

Ties with family, friends and colleagues. Family, of course. And friends, the “chosen family” of understanding and support, and colleagues who share a resonant vision and care enough to challenge us to be all we can be.

Involvement in various community events a great way to feel connected. And children & youth, in all of this, are my constant joy. I’m happy to live on Salt Spring Island, a vibrant community rich in child-honouring practices.

How can people who are working together in communities with a focus on the early years relate to the work taking place at the Centre for Child Honouring?

Individuals & organizations with whom we partner regionally, provincially and beyond embrace the Covenant for Honouring Children and its Principles, share them within their circles and post links to Childhonouring.org on their websites. The Covenant expresses the heart of the Child Honouring philosophy, and the Principles taken together offer a comprehensive children-first way of living and creating sustainable, peace-making cultures.

As a connect-the-dots vision, Child Honouring is increasingly regarded as a metaframework that enhances the work of dedicated advocates of children, community, and ecology. Its strong emphasis on “the primacy of early years” affirms all those who work in ECE, ECD and other early years services. Its children-first way to sustainability affirms early childhood as the gateway to humane being, respectful relations, and ecological wisdom.

What bold steps must be taken for our societies to make children a priority? Any simple steps?

At this pivotal time in human history when the future of our children is at stake on our imperilled planet, we need a “whole systems shift” to a new societal design—a compassion revolution!—with a systems goal of respecting and supporting the personhood of every newborn and their supportive circles of relations. We need, as societies, to express love for children in every sector, to design with the child in mind. Children don’t need our charity, they need the respectful love that individuals and families can feel sanctified by supportive legislation.

Two examples: first, 25 countries now have laws that prohibit all physical punishment of children, including at home & school. We need ALL countries to have this ban, and we need leaders of the world’s major faith traditions to call for exactly that. Secondly, we need a ban on direct advertising & marking to children as exists in Quebec, Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries. A national children’s commissioner, as exists in a number of nations, is a helpful position to further these goals. (Imagine the link between pervasive advertising in early years and the consumption habits of grown-ups, and how this relates to the drive to reduce/reuse/recycle drive to minimize the impact of global warming!)

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is legally binding in countries (like Canada) that have ratified it. Yet few citizens are familiar with it. The CRC declares that children have a right to Provision, Protection, and Participation in society, and further, that children have a right to know they have rights! We need to have this understood in schools and at home in every nation. This is a key component of the mission of the Centre for Child Honouring—to advance this vision as a universal ethic, a code of conduct for all to embrace and live by.

Small steps? There are all kinds of small steps: reducing, reusing, recycling; practicing positive discipline with your children; using only 100% post-consumer recycled chlorine-free paper; urging and supporting child-friendly policies in our elected officials, and much much more as outlined in the anthology, Child Honouring: How to Turn This World Around.

Your song entitled “It takes a Village” was inspired by Dr. Fraser Mustard’s request for a song to help policy makers understand the foundational early years...if you were to take one phrase or one message from this song and share it directly with policy makers what would it be? Why?

From verse 2: “In the early years of life, what does a newborn need to be whole, to thrive in every way?/ In these crucial early years, when the brain is growing, and the love for a lifetime takes hold...”

These words from the song’s 2nd verse express the understanding that early experience shapes a lifetime of behaviour; that’s why the whole of the village (society) must express love for the child, not just some of its component parts, such as family, teacher, doctor, grocer, etc.

What are your short-term goals for the Centre for Child Honouring and what legacy do you hope it will leave?

• We need funding sufficient for staffing the facility and running key programs, such as the Children & Nonviolence Initiative for Faith Leaders, the Covenant translation & distribution program, and our ongoing Speakers Series.
• Also, we’ll develop training tools and processes to train people to give Child Honouring presentations in schools, community centres, etc.
• We’ll soon start a campaign to attract large numbers of Covenant “supporters”, people who’ll add their names to a list of endorsers.
• “Beluga Grads” will be a key constituency among our supporters.
• We’ll work with children & youth to hear their views of Child Honouring themes and to be nourished and inspired by their hearts & minds.
  
  The Centre will be a key voice in the paradigm shift to conscious living, living with the Child in mind. Child Honouring can inspire and accelerate the shift from a bottom line culture where money rules to humane cultures of respectful relations that grow whole-brain Earth stewards worldwide.
  
  We want to be a key partner in advancing a restorative and child-friendly world—as they say at the UN, “a world fit for children”.

For more information on how you can play an active role in Honouring Children or how the Centres work might fit with your community, program or organization – go to the website www.childhonouring.org . Look for current information on the vibrant speaker series, children's art exhibit, and children and nonviolence initiative.