Continuing our commitment to young children with a fresh look...

Equality, in cooperation with the Roma Education Fund, carried out research in the United Kingdom to find out what impact mainstream schooling had on Roma children who had previously been streamed into special or de facto segregated schools.

The findings of this pilot research, From Segregation to Inclusion, show that Roma pupils in the United Kingdom quickly catch up with their non-Roma peers to gain an attainment level comparable with average, a huge achievement in light of the obstacles these children have faced in their home countries in Central Europe.

The second camera of the Brazilian Federation has approved a law against the use of physical and psychological punishment against children.  The Minister of Human Rights, Ms. Maria de Rosário Nunes recognize the achievement of the civil society and the parliamentarians who were involved.

Our Partners in Brazil, The Parliamentary Front for Early Childhood (guided by Vital Didonet –OMEP), the RNPI and other allies were directly involved in advocating for this law.  We co-funded a National Plan for Early Childhood (Under Promundo and OMEP, before, and now with AVANTE) that RNPI launched early this year and that was an important contribution to this achievement.

Brazil is now the 4th country in the Americas banning psychological and physical punishment against children.  Will Peru be next?

Today the Verwey Jonker Institute  published a special edition of the "Kids Count" report on child abuse in the Netherlands, Kinderen In Tel over Kindermishandeling (link in Dutch), based on data from Child Abuse Advice and Reporting Centres from 2003 to 2009. The report shows there are significant disparities in reported cases of abuse between municipalities, largely because each municipality has its own policy on how professionals such as the police or hospital workers should handle suspected cases of abuse. The report also indicates that most municipalities do not yet provide specialised care for victims of child abuse.

The report was made with support of the Bernard van Leer Foundation and Stichting Kinderpostzegels.

By Lisa Jordan, Executive Director, 30 November 2011

In 1969 Joan Gantz Cooney asked the question, ‘How can emerging media help children learn?’ The answer was Sesame Street and Joan is commonly referred to as “Sesame Street’s Mother.” History is repeating itself. Today, we are wondering the same thing. This time not about television but apps, ipads, smart phones and other devises which are far more interactive and attractive, even addictive, to young children.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation recently invited Michael H. Levine to help us address this question. Dr. Levine at the Joan Ganz Cooney centre at Sesame Workshop is busy trying to help parents to navigate the new media space. Parents require navigation, children do not. Smart phones and ipads are an unintentional match made in heaven, really.

The Children's Ombudsman in The Netherlands today officially submitted a letter to the Dutch parliament pointing to statistics which show that child abuse in the Netherlands is a serious and persistent problem, and making proposals for which the Bernard van Leer Foundation and other civil society actors have been pressing. These include the formation of multidisciplinary teams of researchers and greater attention to the accumulation of risk factors which generally cause child abuse, such as poverty, unemployment and parents' mental health.

The latest edition of Early Childhood Matters, Early learning: Lessons from scaling up, is available for download (printed copies can be pre-ordered and will be despatched when available.) It looks at the question of how to scale up early learning provision without sacrificing quality.

Articles consider lessons that can be learned from national-level experiences in South Africa, Kenya, the US, the UK, Macedonia, Cuba, Chile and Peru, as well as examining lessons at an organisational level with input from Reggio Emilia in the US, India's SEWA, the Caribbean's FDCC, ISSA in Central/Eastern Europe, and the OECD.

Further articles discuss what "quality" means in the context of early education services, outline the World Bank's new SABER-ECD tool to collect evidence on what works, and ask how interactive technology can help to scale up early learning.

The US secretaries of health and education wrote to the New York Times on October 30th to reaffirm the Obama administration's commitment to early childhood education, in response to criticism in an op-ed by Nicholas D Kristof on 20th October.

As part of our involvement with the Cinekid film festival, BvLF invited Michael Levine of Sesame Workshop (the organisation behind the TV show Sesame Street) to The Netherlands to talk on the subject of whether interactive touchscreen technology such as smartphones and iPads can aid children's development. The Dutch newspaper De Pers published an interview with Michael Levine on October 20th; BvLF has translated it into English.

Professor Dr. Gabriel Motzkin from Jerusalem will lecture on Jewish Philanthropy and Jewish Identity: The Van Leer Family and Israel on Tuesday November 8th at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. Anyone interested in attending is invited to email Evenementen@jhm.nl. Admission is €5 including coffee. Doors open at 19.30 and the program will start at 20.00.

Last week, the Cinekid film festival awards were presented in Amsterdam; the Bernard van Leer Foundation Best International Film (Audience Award) went to Will, directed by Ellen Perry.

On October 12th our executive director Lisa Jordan was present at the opening of the 25th Cinekid film festival, the international festival for media and young children aged 4 to 12. Princess Maxima and Prince Willem Alexander of the Netherlands were also present.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation asked Lege Fles productions  to create a short film called Living in Media for the opening ceremony, in which young kids talk about their experience with media. Two elementary schools in the Netherlands, Bos & Vaart in Haarlem and the Mgr. Bekkerschool in Amsterdam, participated in the video, which you can watch below.

We are pleased to pass on a call for proposals from the UBS Optimus Foundation for proposals on projects that link the education and health sectors to improve outcomes for young children. See details of the call in this pdf and visit the foundation's website for further information on how to apply.

By Lisa Jordan, Executive Director, 3 October 2011

Back to school time is one of the most stressful times for parents. Organising care for children can be challenging and in a place like the Netherlands it is more challenging than it should be. In The Hague, where I live, only two child care centres are linked with my children’s school and can pick them up for after-school care. Despite having hiked their fees, both have long waiting lists. That is not surprising. Parents who work full time cannot realistically run from the office to pick up their children at 3:00 every day so we will take what we can get. The situation for working parents with younger children looking for affordable quality childcare is comparable. It’s a challenge even if you have the income to pay costs that are on the rise due to a recent change in legislation by the Dutch government. Read more

New research supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation and published in The Lancet reveals that increasing investment in early childhood development programmes is a highly cost-effective strategy that could provide considerable returns, with the potential to promote long-term growth and significantly reduce inequalities in low and middle income countries.

BvLF is also supporting an event to discuss the research, to be hosted by the World Bank on Monday 26th September from 12.30 to 14.00 EST. Further details of the event are on the Bank's website here, and the discussion will be webcasted here. To read the text of The Lancet's press release describing the new research, with links to abstracts, click here.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is pleased to be supporting an upcoming conference on Growing SMEs Latin America, to be held in Bogotá, Colombia, on September 22-23. This conference aims to activate local resources to contribute to strengthening SMEs in emerging markets in ways that are both profitable and socially and environmentally sustainable. Organisers are the BiD Network, the School of Management of the Universidad de los Andes, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, New Ventures, and Creame.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is pleased to announce our sponsorship of the Cinekid 25th International Film Festival for children aged 4-12, to be held in Amsterdam from October 12-21.

We have invited Michael H. Levine of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center - set up by the makers of Sesame Street to develop digital learning materials - to deliver a keynote speech and participate in an expert meeting on new media on October 18/19th. The expert meeting will advise BvLF on how to proceed with a planned further collaboration with the Cinekid Foundation to develop high quality media and new media content aimed at children.

Lisa Jordan, Executive Director of BvLF, said: "Today's reality is that young children live in a media world. If media is high quality, it presents positive development opportunities. It has the potential to reach young children wherever they live and whatever language they speak. Media can help children to express themselves, and help adults to understand children better. It can bring parents and children together by giving them the opportunity to share new experiences, such as the Cinekid festival."

If you are interested in participating in the expert meeting, please contact BvLF's Communications Director, Leontien Peeters. We are especially interested in the potential of interactive media to promote early learning, especially in remote areas which lack centre-based early learning facilities.

BvLF is funding a conference in Ankara on September 20-21 on Being children in seasonal migration: Living conditions of children aged 0-6. See further details of the conference (pdf) and the promotional youtube video.

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The Douglas B. Marshall, Jr. Family Foundation, which works on education and research, is now accepting proposals for a new round of grantmaking. Particular interests are project work in education that is evidence-based, cost-effective and scalable in the long term, or research that contributes to the evidence base on what works to improve educational outcomes. Organizations and projects focused in developing countries are strongly encouraged to apply. The deadline for draft applications is September 23rd, and further details can be found here.

The BvLF-funded Infobarómetro de la Primera Infancia, run by partner Salgalú, was officially presented at an event last Friday. The Infobarómetro collates data on early childhood in Peru to inform policymaking and advocacy. Listen to the coverage of the event on Radio Programas del Perú (RPP) here (in Spanish).

Non-profit organizations, universities and research institutes are invited to submit proposals for research into the effectiveness of programmes to prevent violence against children in low-income settings. Read the press release and the full call for proposals on the website of the Children and Violence Evaluation Challenge Fund, an initiative partly funded by the Bernard van Leer Foundation.

Following on from last week's broadcast of the first episode, BBC World News this weekend broadcasts the second part of the BvLF-funded "In the Mayor's Footsteps". Transmission times (all GMT) are: Saturday August 13th 00:30, 07:30 and 19:30; Sunday August 14th 12:30. Read more in our press release and watch a clip from the programme below.

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Last weekend BBC World News broadcast a BvLF-funded programme made by TVE, In the Mayor’s Footsteps, about the effects of stress and violence in young children's lives. See brief extracts from the programme below:

According to László Andor, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, the longstanding problem of discrimination against and social exclusion of Roma is getting worse. The European Roma Information Office's latest weekly e-newsletter shares the Commissioner's responses on why the welfare of the Roma population “is a European challenge and requires a European response”.

Through our EU-wide programme the Bernard van Leer Foundation collaborates with other European foundations in the Forum for Roma Inclusion, with the aim of helping Roma children to break the cycle of exclusion; clearly, much work remains to be done.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is recruiting a Data Visualisation and Online Reporting Officer to work for 12 months in the Hague on a part-time (30 hours per week) basis. The sucessful applicant will be tasked with creating new websites and an online reporting tool to capture the foundation's activities. See the pdf for further details; deadline is September 9th.

Many thanks to all readers of Bernard van Leer publications who took part in our recent survey. We received responses from readers in 34 countries, ranging from NGO and government employees to academic researchers and individual practitioners. The results were extremely useful in informing us about how we can ensure that our free publications continue to meet the needs of the early childhood community. Read more

 By Lisa Jordan, Executive Director, 4 July 2011

In 2000, when world leaders announced the Millennium Development Goals the children we support today weren’t born. Thanks in part to the political momentum generated around the MDGs, children born into the Millennium Generation have had a better chance to survive to the age of five, receive vaccines, enrol in school and eat a proper meal at least once a day. Aid agencies and UN agencies are currently working hard to make as much progress on these goals as possible before the original deadline of 2015. But what happens after 2015?/

Recently I had the pleasure of spending three days at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center to reflect on this very question with scholars, senior government and UN officials and one or two international NGOs, at an event hosted by the International Federation of the Red Cross, the Center for International Governance Innovation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Read more

The 2011 Victor J. Goldberg IIE Prize for Peace in the Middle East has been won by a long-standing partner of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. Vivian Silver and Amal Elsana Alh'jooj, pictured flanked by Victor J. Goldberg and the IIE's Peggy Blumenthal, were honoured for their work with the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation (AJEEC), which is funded by BvLF to improve opportunities for children in Arab Bedouin communities of the Negev.

We are inviting applications for a programme officer to manage our Europe-wide programme to scale up quality early learning programmes for Roma children. Download the job description and details of how to apply (pdf). The deadline for applications is August 9th.

The June 2011 edition of Early Childhood Matters - Hidden violence: Protecting children at home - is now available. Among the subjects addressed are the need for better data about the extent of violence against children in the home and family and stronger evidence about what works, such as programmes to strengthen families, engage men in childrearing and challenge social norms. Like all BvLF publications, it is free to order or download.

Supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation since 2002, the Caribbean Child Support Initiative is evolving into the Caribbean's first indigenous foundation dedicated to early childhood care and development. The Foundation for the Development of Caribbean Children will be launched at a four-day regional forum starting June 27. Read about the FDCC on the Caribbean 360 news website, and see the CCSI's factsheet for further background information.

Peru's new president-elect Ollanta Humala has reaffirmed that early childhood programmes will be among his top priorities, echoing commitments he made as a presidential candidate. The below video shows Humala talking to longstanding BvLF partner Salgalú at an advocacy meeting before the election, and his references to early childhood in speeches and interviews following his election victory. Read more

We are looking for a consultant to help us develop our strategy in India - both our new work focused on child malnutrition and morbidity in urban slums, and our on-going work on improving access to quality multilingual pre-school for tribal children in Orissa. The assignment will run for 12 months, starting as soon as possible, based in India with occasional travel to The Hague. Further details are available here and the deadline for applications is July 9th.

Foundations are generally a demanding lot when it comes to the organizations we fund. We want evaluations, progress reports, audits, indicators, scorecards. But are we also as demanding of ourselves? It seems not. Many foundations do not look rigorously at their own practice to ask themselves if they are using their resources as effectively as they could be.

Why is this? I joined with like-minded partners (Bertlesmann, Cariplo, Erasmus Centre for Strategic Philanthropy, the European Foundation Centre, and the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace) to find out. We surveyed 54 European foundations about their attitudes to assessing their own work, and where they feel they could use more knowledge.

This six-month process led to a recent workshop at the European Foundation Centre’s annual conference in Cascais, Portugal. The conference’s theme was sustainable oceans, so we called our workshop “Impact Island”. On this video, Bettina Windau of Bertelsmann and I briefly explain what Impact Island is all about. Read more

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Increasing choice or inequality? Pathways through early education in Andhra Pradesh, India is the latest working paper to emerge from the Young Lives project, a 15-year longitudinal study of early childhood in four countries: Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. Like all BvLF publications, it is free to download or order.

Combining qualitative research with data from tracking 1950 children born in Andhra Pradesh in 2001, this paper explores the divergence in pre-school and primary services as those offered by the government increasingly compete with a rapidly-growing and poorly-regulated private sector.

Previous working papers in the Young Lives project's Studies in Early Transitions series are Early childhood transitions research: A review of concepts, theory, and practice (Working Paper 48, by Pia Vogler, Gina Crivello and Martin Woodhead); Equity and quality? Challenges for early childhood and primary education in Ethiopia, India and Peru (Working Paper 55, by Martin Woodhead, Patricia Ames, Uma Vennam, Workneh Abebe and Natalia Streuli); and Continuity and respect for diversity: Strengthening early transitions in Peru (Working Paper 56, by Patricia Ames, Vanessa Rojas and Tamia Portugal).

Reducing violence in young children’s lives is one BvLF's three strategic goals - and an issue we have been working on in Juarez, Mexico, for over three years. Today we join the chorus of praise for Martha Rivera, a kindergarten teacher from Monterey (a city in Mexico as afflicted by drugs violence as Juarez) who is being honoured in Mexico for the way in which she kept the children in her class safe and calm during a deadly gun battle between drug gangs going on right outside of the school. The video below has already been seen over 200,000 times on YouTube.

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Her actions illustrate the important role adults can play in protecting young children from violence and limiting the influence of that violence on their development. Our programmes in Brazil and Israel also focus on finding out more about how societal violence effects young children and what adults and society at large can do to limit the impact of that violence on the development of young children.

Creating a value base for transparency in Europe is the subject of a new post by BvLF's executive director Lisa Jordan on The Foundation Center's "Glass Pockets" blog.

Amal Elsana Alhjooj and Hagit Damri of the Hagar bilingual school - a partner of the Bernard van Leer Foundation in Israel, where children from Jewish and Arab backgrounds learn together - recently visited the United States on an informational and fundraising tour.

You can read about the background to the visit on the Hagar website, and local accounts of their meetings in Tacoma in Soundly Jewish, and in Los Angeles in the Jewish Journal. For a short introduction to Hagar's work (subtitled in English), see the below video.

As part of our work to highlight the effects of violence on children growing up in Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, we funded an independent journalist named Jean Friedman-Rudovsky whose article was picked up by the Village Voice Media and published in a number of their newspapers around the United States as part of the "Amongst U.S." series on immigration. You can read the report here. The "Amongst U.S." series has now won the 2010 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.

The cycle of violence in the Israeli conflict goes something like this: Violence leads to trauma, trauma leads to revenge, and revenge leads to violence. In adolescent girls, these feelings are most acute and result in action. In very young children where there is no difference in the effects of witnessing or experiencing violence, the brain matter is developed in accordance to the level of violence the child experiences: The more trauma, the thicker the brain stem becomes, and the less space there is for cortical, limbic development, which moderates primitive behaviour. Read more

Professor Nathaniel Laor delivered the Van Leer Lecture at the Council on Foundations Annual Conference in Philadelphia on Sunday April 10th. You can read more about the research on which Professor Laor's lecture was based in a press release from the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Teachers-based Intervention Provides Stress Resistance in War-Exposed Children.

Following meetings hosted by the Bernard van Leer Foundation - and ahead of International Roma Day on April 8th - the European Foundation Centre's Forum for Roma Inclusion has issued a five-part response to the European Commission’s Communication on an EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies. Read it here. The response will be delivered today in Brussels by Christian Petry, chair of the EFC Forum, on the occasion of a European Roma Information Office conference.

BvLF is pleased to invite you to view our Annual Report for 2010. You can download it as a pdf, or request a free printed copy.

BvLF congratulates Nabila Espanioly on being named as one of the 100 most influential women in the world. Director of the Altafula Center in Nazareth, Nabila is a key person in the Musharaka Association, a collective of organisations supported by BvLF which works to improve early childhood care and development in Arab Palestinian communities in Israel.

A foundation partner since 1990, the Centro Popular de Cultura e Desenvolvimento (CPCD) has been nominated for a 2011 Globe Award in the Sustainable City category for its work in Araçuaí, Brazil. BvLF has supported two early childhood projects as part of this work - Hug's Pedagogy and the Sementinha ("little seed") approach explored in a previous issue of our journal Early Childhood Matters.

While the details of BvLF’s country strategy in Israel remain under development, the foundation’s first approved grant of 2011 lays the ground for progress towards our first defined goal in the country – universal access to quality pre-school among 3 to 6 year old children. Read more

Calling all entrepreneurs in Tanzania, Uganda, India, Turkey, Peru or Brazil. Do you have a business idea that could have a positive impact on young children by improving the physical environment in which they grow up? Examples could be cleaner energy, water and sanitation solutions, better housing, safer transport, safer places to play, and so on. Are you seeking finance in the range of US$ 10,000 to US$ 1 million? If so, check out the Business Benefiting Children competition sponsored by BvLF and implemented by the BiD Network. You could win support from a coach to improve your business plan, a business trip for training, and access to over 100 investors. The deadline to submit your short business plan is March 15th for Peru and Brazil and March 31st for Turkey, India, Uganda and Tanzania.   

Professor Nathaniel Laor — one of the world’s leading experts in the traumatic impact of disasters on children, families, and communities — will deliver the 2011 Van Leer Lecture on Sunday, April 10, at the Council on Foundations Annual Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A. He will discuss the harrowing impact of violence in children’s lives and offer ways to build resilience to traumatic events. Read more (pdf)

Imagine you are a young child and one of your parents is in prison. Perhaps you don’t know – maybe you unexpectedly went to live with your aunt, who told you your mother was called away on an important secret mission. When relatives are caring for children of imprisoned parents, they often will try to shield the child from the truth. Read more

A long-standing BvLF project, Una: The Global Learning Initiative on Children and Ethnic Diversity (formerly JLICED – Joint Learning Initiative for Children and Ethnic Diversity) is holding an international conference in Amsterdam on May 12-14. Spearheaded by Professor Paul Connolly of Queen's University Belfast, Una is a global, inter-disciplinary network of leading researchers and practitioners committed to reducing racial and ethnic divisions and building socially inclusive communities through the promotion of effective early childhood programs. Aimed at practitioners, researchers and policymakers, the conference - Building peacable communities: The power of early childhood - will explore the power of early childhood as a force for reducing racial and ethnic divisions and building peaceable communities. NB: The call for papers deadline is March 11th.

The first issue of Early Childhood in Focus, on Attachment Relationships: Quality of Care for Young Children, is now available in pdf format in Hungarian translation. Published in collaboration with the Open University, Early Childhood in Focus accessibly reviews the best and most recent research, information and analysis on key policy issues, offering clear messages for advocates.

On January 17th an interview with Trude Maas-de Brouwer, Trustee of the Bernard van Leer Foundation,  appeared in the Dutch newspaper Sp¡ts. It is part of a series by Sp¡ts reporter Alexander Bakker talking to influential people on how the Netherlands will look in 2030. You can find the article online in Dutch here, or read a summary in English.

• Israel: Drop Out Rates Lowest in a Decade
• Kids Council Convinces Government to Improve Quality of Pre-School
• National Funds Doubled for Babies and Toddlers
• Corporate Leaders for Kids Chapter Opens in Israel
• Roma Children Gain Access to Quality Education
• Juarez: 6000 Safe Spaces for Kids Created
• Peru: Mayors Mobilized for Children
• Kids Parliament Commands National Attention
• Caribbean: Banks Establish National Trust for Children’s Care
• Netherlands: Family Violence Reduced
• Uganda: Community Contracts Eliminate Family Violence
• Corporations Stand up for Kids Rights

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2011!

The Bernard van Leer Foundation joins Partners in Health in commemorating the 1st anniversary of the terrible earthquake that devastated Haiti one year ago today.

Young Children were not only high among the casualties of that fateful day, they also suffered disproportionally in the aftermath. Lack of food, clean water and safe spaces, increased violence and disease remains a reality for young children in Haiti today.  All these factors impact the health, security and their opportunities to learn,  meaning they will be affected by the earthquake both physically, mentally and emotionally for the rest of their lives. 

That is why continued attention for the situation of young children in Haiti remains a global responsibility. Partners in Health is one of the few aid organizations that before and after the earthquake has consistently worked to build the capacity of the Haitian government to provide basic services for children. Bernard van Leer is proud to support their important work.

A report commissioned by the Children's Defense Fund on child poverty in the USA has highlighted the Bernard van Leer Foundation's work in the Mississippi Delta. The report, "Held Captive": Child Poverty in America, was picked up by media outlets including CNN and the Huffington Post.

Season's Greetings from the Bernard van Leer Foundation.

A new working paper entitled Children’s right to play: An examination of the importance of play in the lives of children worldwide is now available. Wendy Russell and Stuart Lester of the UK's University of Gloucestershire argue that play is fundamental to the health and well-being of children, and that state signatories to Convention on the Rights of the Child - as well as adults more generally - should recognise, respect and promote play as a right.

A new edition of BvLF's biannual journal, Early Childhood Matters, looks at the issue of Young children in cities: Challenges and opportunities. Articles look at various aspects of how urban life affects children, from exposure to violence through lack of space to play, and feature contributions from across four continents.

Does anyone remember the introduction of the convenience store in the fifties, the prequel to our modern mega supermarkets? That was when the private sector figured out that convenience is key to meeting consumer demand and boosting profits. Not only do customers prefer to get their flu shot, new outfit and bread all in the same supermarket, it is also cheaper for the service providers. Read more

In the December issue of Alliance, the philanthropy and social investment magazine, BvLF executive director Lisa Jordan writes about the foundation's work for young Roma children, stressing the importance of action at local level and leadership from civil society. The article is available in pdf form here, courtesy of Alliance magazine, and the full issue is available by subscription at www.alliancemagazine.org. 

An interactive panel discussion on ‘Implementing Child Rights in Early Childhood’ was held at UNICEF House in New York last night to highlight the importance of the period between birth and three years. Among the panellists was BvLF's executive director Lisa Jordan, who stressed that only 53 per cent of countries have comprehensive national early childhood development programmes in place. Read a full report on the panel discussion here. 

‘And what do you expect from UNESCO?’, the Dutch Ambassador to UNESCO Mr Barend ter Haar asked me quite candidly at UNESCO's World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education in Moscow last month. Armed with talking points I rattled off two areas of intervention that UNESCO could champion. However, the first answer that came to mind was ‘Not much’. Read more

In the autumn edition of the European Foundation Centre's Effect Magazine, BVLF's Executive Dirctor Lisa Jordan co-authors a piece discussing The essentials of impact assessment (pdf).

‘There is nothing for these kids and families. This is the area of greatest need in this country. Where are you?’  This was one of many responses we got when I visited Israel last month to determine how our new goals – bringing quality early learning to scale; reducing violence in young children’s lives; and addressing the physical environment in which young children live – respond to one of the local contexts in which we work. Read more 

The United Nations have published an 18-page pdf entitled Status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, presented to the 65th session of the UN General Assembly. Most of the report, paragraphs 6 through 61, is specifically focused on the current state of implementation of the CRC regarding young children. (For further information, see our backgrounder on General Comment 7, on implementing child rights in early childhood).

The latest edition of Early Childhood in Focus, entitled Culture and learning, looks at children's right to "development": the major policy questions surrounding the place of culture in early childhood programmes, and how to promote development and learning while respecting cultural diversities. The ECiF series provides clear reviews of research for policy makers and child advocates.

Speaking at an event in Peru last week to launch the latest results of the Young Lives project (press release, in Spanish), the Chair of the foundation Board of Trustees, Peter Bell (pictured, right), called for Peru to focus as much on human development and the fair distribution of wealth as on economic growth and physical infrastructure. Young Lives is a major longitudinal study of children in Peru and three other countries, funded by the Bernard van Leer Foundation. The project's progress so far in Peru was the subject of a recent foundation working paper.

In the wake of Roma expulsions from France, the European Foundation Centre (EFC) Forum for Roma Inclusion met in Vienna on 9-10 September to renew their ongoing efforts to abate Roma exclusion and step up actions to promote European values. Read more

Today a front-page feature in the Miami New Times and several other US newspapers considers the plight of young children in Ciudad Juarez, the subject of BvLF executive director Lisa Jordan's recent message. As BvLF's Leonardo Yanez says in the article, "In just a few more years, these kids are going to be sucked into the narco world. Early childhood is the point where a rupture can be made."

How can governments make sure non-profit organizations in Europe aren’t being used a front for financing terrorism? This was the subject of the EU Directorate General of Home Affairs’ third meeting on non-profit sector transparency and accountability. Having co-authored a book on accountability in the non-profit sector, I was happy to be asked to share my views. Read more

Setting our agenda on early learning, violence and physical environment is the latest edition of the Bernard van Leer Foundation's journal, Early Childhood Matters. A keynote article by programme director Michael Feigelson sets the scene for a collection of articles exploring different aspects of the foundation's new goals, including an update on the Wolfensohn Centre's studies of scaling up early childhood education programmes, an interview with UN special representative on violence against children Marta Santos Pais, and a look at town planning issues in the Netherlands.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is offering three research internships to Masters students and young professionals. The internships will start on 1st September for four months at a minimum of 15 hours per week. Read more

Ciudad Juarez has become one of the most violent places in the world over the past one and a half years. There were 2600 homicides in 2009 and 1086 people have died already this year, mostly due to drugs related street violence. The Mexican army has taken up permanent residence in the city. One can only imagine what effects this has on the most vulnerable members of society in Ciudad Juarez, the children. At least 900 children have died in the past 3 years. Over 10,000 have lost parents. Read more

Now available to order or download as a pdf, Continuity and respect for diversity: Strengthening early transitions in Peru continues our Studies in Early Childhood Transitions series of working papers reporting on Young Lives, a 15-year longitudinal study of childhood poverty. This paper, by Patricia Ames, Vanessa Rojas and Tamia Portugal, explores the diverse experiences of 28 children from four contrasting communities in Peru as they start school. The authors highlight common problems and propose four ways in which children’s early educational transitions can be enhanced.

Last week to a packed audience in Brussels at the European Foundation Week (blog), I had an opportunity to share some thoughts with a hundred or so other foundations on evaluation. Read more

The 2010 Van Leer Lecture was delivered by Akwasi Aidoo on the subject of “Social Justice and Philanthropy in Africa: Transforming Power Relations and the Balance of Stories", as part of the Council on Foundations' 2010 Annual Conference in Denver last month. Akwasi Aidoo is the founding Executive Director of TrustAfrica, a foundation dedicated to securing democracy and equitable development in Africa. The lecture series is a partnership between the Van Leer Group Foundation and the Council on Foundations. It has been running since 2006 and is designed to highlight thoughtful international perspectives on philanthropy. Previous lecturers were Dr. Shimshon Zelniker of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute (2006); Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health (2007); Azar Nafisi, Iranian-born author of Reading Lolita in Tehran (2008); and Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (2009).

On 11 May, the four partners of the Bernard van Leer Foundation who work together in Israel as the Musharaka Trust co-organised with the Ministry of Education's pre-primary department a conference in Nazareth on “Early Child Care and Development – The Holistic Integrative Approach". Attended by 150 representatives of various government and civil society organisations, the conference was lauded by foundation programme officer Marc J. Mataheru for enabling exchange and debate between the various stakeholders on a subject relevant to the foundation's new goal of scaling up quality early learning programmes. More information on the conference is available (in Arabic) on alarab.net, bokra.net and raddar.co.il.

Hosted by Plan Belgium, a panel of experts on early childhood presented experiences and analyses to the European Parliament in Brussels on May 5th. Among them, the Bernard van Leer Foundation's Leonardo Yánez made the case for supporting early education as a priority in the South. More information on the Plan Belgium website (in French).

Lisa Jordan, Executive Director, writes: "Roma children are three times more likely to die before the age of five than other European children. One million Roma children never go to school, another million Roma children are relegated to schools for children with special needs." Read more

We have pleasure to share a document prepared for the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security (ACESS) in South Africa, which introduces indicators for monitoring the realisation of the rights of young children and applies them to provinces across the country.

With great sadness we wish to inform that Harry Leliveld, a Trustee of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, has passed away. Read more

The Bernard van Leer Foundation's Annual Report for 2009 is now available. Reports on our activities and finances over the last year are complemented by stories from the field showing the impact of selected grants, and an insight into how we arrived at the three goals that will define our grantmaking in the coming years. There is also an executive summary in Spanish.

Supporting Parenting is the latest in our publication series Early Childhood in Focus, published jointly with the Open University. This issue addresses government programmes to support parents in fulfilling their parenting role. How can these programmes be critically evaluated and adapted to local circumstances - and what is "good parenting" anyway? Early Childhood in Focus offers practical and accessible summaries of the latest research to policy makers, practitioners and advocates working in the field of early childhood.

On March 9th and 10th, the Bernard van Leer Foundation held two global expert meetings in which researchers, advocates and practitioners from around the world joined us at our office in the Hague to discuss two of our new goals: reducing violence in young children’s lives and improving the physical environments where young children grow up. Read more

A European Foundation Centre (EFC) Forum for Roma Inclusion Workshop took place on 4 and 5 March 2010 in The Hague, hosted by the Bernard van Leer Foundation. The focus of the workshop was on early childhood development within the Roma communities. Read more

The Bernard van Leer Foundation warmly welcomes the recent initiative by the World Bank and Grammy Award-winning artist Shakira, which will plough US$300 million into early childhood programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean over the next two years. We look forward to working with the World Bank's team on this issue.

Leonardo Yanez, programme officer for Latin America at the Bernard van Leer Foundation, this week addressed a special session of the Pemanent Council of the Organization of American States on the topic of “Investing in early childhood: a sure strategy for combating poverty and for promoting social development and equity”. You can watch the video of Leonardo's presentation on the OAS website, and read the OAS's press release on the event.

Young children are everyone’s business – and that includes businesses. The Bernard van Leer Foundation is reaching out to Dutch corporations with a €100,000 incentive to join us in investing in young children. Read more

The Bernard van Leer Foundation has made a €40,000 grant to Partners in Health to support those affected by the earthquake in Haiti. PIH has been working on the ground in Haiti for over 20 years, and we have previously supported their work to improve maternal and child health in rural areas. You can donate here.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation has announced it will commit €300,000 to support the United Nations’ Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence against Children. With this contribution, the Bernard van Leer Foundation is the first private foundation to commit financial support to this new UN effort.

"On October 18 2009, Rio de Janeiro drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter during a gun battle between rival gangs in the favela Morro dos Macaco..." In a new message Lisa Jordan, the foundation's executive director, introduces the foundation's new goals and other important changes. Read more

On 26th November 2009 Bureau Mutant, a long-standing partner of the foundation in the Netherlands, celebrated its 20th anniversary. Accompanying the occasion was the launch of their latest publication, Permanent leren: Van zelfreflectie naar teamreflectie (Permanent learning: From self reflection to team reflection), one of the outputs from the foundation-funded Parents and Diversity project.