BvLF announces new issue areas, eligible countries
The Bernard van Leer Foundation is changing the way it approaches grantmaking in early childhood. For the coming years, the foundation will focus on three issue areas: strengthening the care environment, successful transitions and social inclusion and respect for diversity.
These three issues are now the primary guide of the foundation's work. They will inform the outcomes we seek and the way we allocate resources.
We are also narrowing our geographical focus. While retaining a presence on all continents, we are phasing out of some countries. Read on for a full list of countries which are eligible for future grants.
Our three issue areas arose from a process of identifying explicitly our existing institutional strengths from over four decades of work in early childhood, and also from a scan of which issues are the most important for the wellbeing and development of children. We will seek through future grants not only to benefit those participating in projects, but also to expand our knowledge in one or more of these areas.
Issue 1: Strengthening the Care Environment
This issue is about helping disadvantaged young children to get a fair start. Care is not only about custodial caretaking – the care environment has many layers which affect children's rights and learning, each with their own risks, so this issue area typically requires broad-based approaches. Nonetheless, there is significant focus here on parenting skills, teenage parenting, children of imprisoned parents, children without parents, and children affected by displacement and migration.
Also in this category comes our work on young children affected by HIV/AIDS, which emphasises community-based care and psychosocial support.
Issue 2: Successful Transitions
This issue is about the transitions children make from their home environment into their first experiences of life outside – daycare, preschool and school. Our interventions in this issue area seek to promote children's developmental readiness for these new experiences, and to support teachers and care workers in making the transitions successful.
Our aims here include improving children's access to primary schooling and success at school. It is not always helpful to push the entry into formal schooling down to younger and younger age groups – less formal, age-appropriate interventions can lead to better long-term outcomes.
Issue 3: Social Inclusion/Respect for Diversity
This issue is about helping children who are growing up in diverse and often conflict-ridden societies to develop attitudes, skills, and habits that will help them to deal with their societites and, ultimately, improve them.
There are two strands. The first, social inclusion, is about ensuring equal rights and access for disadvantaged children. The second, respect for diversity, is about about building positive social identities and pro-social behaviour such as caring, sharing, empathy, problem solving and negotiating skills.
Our new geographical range
Our new focus on issue areas is coupled with renewed determination to build on the knowledge generated by our field projects and communicate it effectively to decision makers and opinion leaders to lead to wider change for children. This implies more intensive work in fewer countries.
We now have a total of 21 countries eligible for grants. We retain a presence in all the regions in which we have historically worked.
- Africa: Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe
- Asia/MENA: India, Israel, Indonesia, Morocco, Thailand
- Europe: Poland, Turkey, Germany, Greece, Netherlands
- Latin America: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru
- USA/Caribbean: East Caribbean, United States
NB: There may still be grants for regional projects that also encompass countries other than those on the new eligibility list; Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago are included in East Caribbean, though they will no longer be eligible for country-specific as opposed to Caribbean-region grants.
