A message from the Executive Director

By Lisa Jordan, Executive Director, 30 October 2009

There couldn’t be a more challenging time to begin to lead a privately endowed foundation than in the midst of a global financial crisis. But challenges also imply opportunities. Three months after taking over as the Executive Director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, I would like to take a moment to share with you what I have learned so far, and how the foundation intends to carry forward its work.

I want first to thank the many experts in early childhood who have been generous in sharing with me their knowledge and clarity of purpose since I began my new role. One such expert is Paul Connolly, author of the foundation’s recently-published Working Paper 52, which shows how by the age of just three children already understand their status in society and have internalized feelings of superiority or inferiority. By the time they are six, the habits of discrimination are mimicked and ingrained.

If you are an early childhood specialist, you will already know this. But it is news to many of the friends, parents and journalists with whom I talk over the dinner table. Their reaction is always the same: an urgent desire for more practical knowledge about what we all can do to keep the youngest members of our global society from repeating the patterns of older generations.

The messages we have to share about early childhood are emotionally powerful. We must bring them into the public limelight clearly, consistently and passionately. The youngest members of our societies have no voice, do not vote, and are often invisible. They need advocates.

As a privately endowed foundation, we can use our resources to create new advocates. One rich source of potential advocates is the business community. The Bernard van Leer Foundation has its roots in the corporate world, and already works successfully with private sector leaders in South Africa and Brazil. As we mark our 60th anniversary in November with events in The Hague, we will launch a new quest for partnership with corporate leaders in the Netherlands.

Private sector engagement is needed because, in an era of financial scarcity, governments cannot be expected to act alone. Nobody understands the case for economic returns on investment more instinctively than corporate leaders, and the evidence for economic returns on investment in early childhood is compelling – as established notably by Nobel Laureate James Heckman, our interviewee in the June 2009 edition of Early Childhood Matters.

Journalists, too, are potentially key advocates for young children. They play a vital role in informing public debate and can bring stories of children’s realities to the attention of the public in compelling ways. Therefore we will also mark our 60th anniversary by awarding, for the first time, fellowships to six talented young journalists to hone their skills in covering early childhood.

As the foundation comes to the end of its current three-year strategic plan, we are looking anew at the work we support to determine how, in future, we can achieve greater impact with fewer resources. We are revisiting the fundamentals of our mission by asking ourselves and our partners: what are the most urgent and under-addressed problems facing young children worldwide?

We already know that the next generation is greatly compromised by poor health, lack of educational opportunity, violence and discrimination. Our goals and strategies in the coming years will derive from a clear identification of the root causes of these problems, and a systemic analysis of how and where we can create the greatest leverage to resolve them.

Our future geographic range will also be determined through this strategic planning process. By 2010, our grantmaking will be oriented toward greater impact in fewer countries. And while we review our current programmes, further financial support for projects in 2009 will only be undertaken in countries in which our operations are already systemic: the Caribbean, India, Israel, Mexico, Peru, South Africa and the USA. Worldwide outreach will continue through global networks and the robust publications we publish or support, including Early Childhood Matters and Early Childhood in Focus.

As well as the 60th anniversary of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, November 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As described by Lothar Krappmann in an interview in the forthcoming November 2009 edition of Early Childhood Matters, progress in realising children’s rights has so far been slow but steady. We are determined to play our role in making sure that the urgency of children’s rights and needs is taken up by more advocates, and the right of all young children to reach their full potential becomes a reality from the very start of life.

Lisa Jordan, October 2009