immigrantchildren.ca

immigrantchildren.ca ends its top ten series with the Top 10 tweeps on issues specific to immigrant and refugee children and youth. Thanks to all for suggestions via DM, comments left here or by email to me directly.

1. http://twitter.com/CRINwire ~ “CRIN is a global network coordinating and promoting information and action on child rights”. CRIN stands for Child Rights Information Network.
   
2. http://twitter.com/UNICEF ~ “Founded in 1946, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is the driving force that helps build a world where the rights of every child are realized”.
3. http://twitter.com/Anniekidder ~  The woman behind People for Education.
4. http://twitter.com/supportKIND ~ “Protecting the rights of refugee and immigrant children in the United States”. But not just tweets about US.
5. http://twitter.com/RightToPlayCAN ~ The Right to Play movement.
6. http://twitter.com/immigrantyouth ~ “Conceive ideas. cultivate leadership. connect youth”.
7. http://twitter.com/yLINC ~ “online web portal for newcomer youth between the ages of 18-24, designed to serve as an enriching and interactive online experience”.
8. http://twitter.com/freethechildren ~ Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger. News on migrant children’s rights and global movements to support child rights.
9. http://twitter.com/wrcommission ~ “Advocating for laws, policies and programs to improve the lives and protect the rights of refugee and displaced women, children and youth”.
10. http://twitter.com/Girls20Summit ~ 2 days before the “official” G20 Summit, this organization will bring together women and girls from around the world to Toronto. No doubt migration, refugee and racism will be among top issues. Cool website too, with lots of useful information.

The International Human Rights Law Clinic, the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity (UC, Berkeley) and the Immigration Law Clinic (UC, Davis) have recently released a policy brief entitled “In The Child’s Best Interest? The Consequences of Losing a  Lawful Immigrant Parent to Deportation”.

The brief reviews the current state of immigration law in the United States and the impact of the deportation of “lawful permanent resident parents” of more than 100,000 children (of which, more than 80,000 are US citizens).  A harrowing look at the impact of such deportations on children’s lives, education and relationships.

IPSCAN - the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, sponsors the upcoming conference One World, One Family, Many Cultures: Strengthening Children and Families Affected by Personal, Intra-Familial and Global Conflict Sept 26-29/10 in Hawaii. From the conference description:

“Our theme, One World, One Family, Many Cultures, recognizes that in spite of our differences we live in one world that is a global family made up of many cultures that can work together towards a common goal of strengthening families, and preventing abuse and neglect of our children. The world faces many challenges with unfortunate conflicts among nations and tragic effects of armed conflict on our families, children and communities. The increase in violence among family members and its painful effects on our children have also challenged us to find ways to strengthen families and prevent family violence. Knowing the value of diversity in our efforts to prevent harm to our children, we invite the nations of the world to share their cultural experiences, values, and traditions to empower the youth of our nations to work together”.

Conference sub-themes:
1. Cultural Perspectives in Strengthening Families and Protecting Children
2. Identifying, Treating and Preventing Family and Sexual Violence
3. Impact of Armed Conflict on Families and Children
4. Family Strengthening: A Key to the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
5. Youth Empowerment in the Prevention of Generational Child Abuse and Neglect.

For more information, visit the conference website.

Should folks fortunate enough to be born in the ‘developed’ world be obliged to share their privilege with those less lucky? Author – and Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism, Ayelet Shachar thinks so. In her new book “The Birthright Lottery”, Shachar investigates the accident of birth and proposes several ways to reconsider (and bestow) citizenship.

Arguing that citizenship status has been arbitrarily given in most nations by birthright and that a child born in Canada ought not have such an unfair advantage over a child born in a poor nation. Among Shachar’s suggestions is a levy on “the inheritance of citizenship” or that citizenship be awarded based on the individual’s “genuine connection” to a country. Shachar asks important and provocative questions on what responsibilities global citizens have to each other.

The theme for the 2010 NAME (National Association for Multicultural Education) conference is “Empowering Children and Youth: Equity, Multiculturally Responsive Teaching and Achievement Gaps”. The international conference runs from Nov 4-6, 2010 in Las Vegas NV.

Deadline is April 17, 2010. For more information and to access the online submission form, see the conference website.

Among the showings at Toronto’s annual Hot Docs film festival, running from April 29-May 9, 2010 are:

In the Name of the Family ~ about Aqsa Parvez and her so-called honour killing

Listen to This ~ Pianist Thompson Egbo-Egbo starts a music program at his former school in Toronto’s Jane-Finch community

Babies ~ just babies in settings around the world (also see film website)

Grace, Milly, Lucy … Child Soldiers ~ the lives of Ugandan child soldiers

The Day I Will Never Forget ~ about female genital mutilation in Kenya

Made in India ~ about tourist surrogacy and the reproductive industry in developing countries.

The Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Services Agencies of BC (AMSSA) has launched a new website to provide information related to newcomer children. The site Newcomer Children Information Exchange includes information, resources and other items of interest in several areas:

• Early Childhood Education
• English as a Second Language
• Family Dynamics
• Health and Wellness
• Multiculturalism and Identity
• Adaptation and Integration
• Schooling
• Socio-Economics

immigrantchildren.ca welcomes this new presence in cyberspace that addresses the specific and unique needs of immigrant, refugee – all newcomer – children.

The site also features:
• A searchable database of useful research reports, educational materials, and web links
• Theme pages that provide a general overview of key issues affecting newcomer children
• The eventual home (and archive) of the ANCIE e-newsletter.

The KidsRights Foundation annually awards the Children’s Peace Prize to a child “whose courageous or otherwise extraordinary efforts have made an impact on behalf of the rights of the child”.

Former award winners include AIDS activist Nkosi Johnson, South Africa, “slave” Om Prakash Gurjar, India, peace activist Mayra Avellar Neves, Brazil.

The Children’s Peace Prize includes prize money, which will be invested by KidsRights in specific projects related to the struggle for peace and interests of the winner.

Do you know a child who works on behalf of the rights of children? Deadline for nominations in April 1, 2010.

The United Nations website on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It is increasingly being recognized that practitioners and evaluators using Quality Rating Improvement Services (QRIS) in early child development settings, must address the growing diversity of the families and children served in these settings.

The US-based National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has created the Quality Benchmark for Cultural Competence Project (QBCCP) in order to develop a tool to assess the level of competence in programs participating in a QRIS. Driving the process was the fundamental belief that “for the optimal development and learning of all children, educators must accept the legitimacy of children’s home langauge, respect … the home culture, and promote and encourage the active involvement and support of all families, including the extended and nontraditional family units” (NAEYC 1995, 2).

Eight concepts of cultural competenece:

1. Acknowledge that children are nested in families and communities with unique strengths. Recognize and mitigate the tension between the early childhood profession’s perceptions of the child as the center of the work versus the family as the center of the work.

2. Build on and identify the strengths and shared goals between the profession and families and recognize commonalities in order to meet these goals.

3. Understand and authentically incorporate the traditions and history of the program participants and their impacts on child­ rearing practices.

4. Actively support each child’s development within the family as complex and culturally­ driven ongoing experiences.

5. Recognize and demonstrate awareness that individuals’ and institutions’ practices are embedded in culture.

6. Ensure that decisions and policies regarding all aspects of a program embrace and respect participants’ language, values, attitudes, beliefs and approaches to learning.

7. Ensure that policies and practices build upon the home languages and dialects of the children, families and staff in programs and support the preservation of home languages.

For more information, visit the NAEYC website.

The European Union has commissioned a study to investigate traditional harmful practices. From the website harmfulpractices.org, this description of the study:

“The Study aims at providing assistance to the European Union in defining and harmonising its action to end Harmful Traditional Practices, based on proven actions in Europe and elsewhere in both policy and practice. The Study shall, in particular, break new ground for the EU and provide concrete paths forward in relation to both harmonisation of legislation and policy and action at grassroots and governmental levels.

“For the purpose of this Study, harmful traditional practices will include: female genital mutilation/cutting; honour-related violence including so-called honour killings; forced marriage; force feeding or starvation for cosmetic purposes; other violent and coercive acts justified on the grounds of tradition, culture or religion that harm the well-being of those who are victims of them, with particular attention to the impact on women and girls”.

The study will examine legislation in all 27 member states of the EU, look at case studies of successful and unsuccessful persecutions, and discuss and develop indicators and responses from civil society to harmful traditional practices.

For more info, visit the study website.

The National Post‘s Barbara Kay has reviewed the Burka Barbie and asks why the world’s most famous fashion doll is wearing a burka, a “symbol of oppression”. From the provocative article:

“In the eyes of the majority who do consider both dolls and guns natural objects of play, however, there should be no moral distinction between Burka Barbie and a putative G.I. Joe figure in a suicide vest for essentially they both represent a medieval Islamist worldview that flies in the face of the West’s most cherished values: equality of men and women and respect for human life, including one’s own”.

Read the column here.