Child to Child featured in best practice report
On October 19th 2017, 8 80 Cities, in collaboration with the Bernard van Leer Foundation, launched its report “Building Better Cities with Young Children and Families”. 8 80 cities believes that “if everything we do in our cities is great for an 8 year old and an 80 year old, then it will be great for all people”.
The report examines effective methods for engaging young children and caregivers in different aspects of city building. To build this collection of best practices, the researchers interviewed a large group of experts, among them Dr. Celine Woznica, Director of Child to Child of the Americas. The final report comprised 21 case studies from 16 different countries which were chosen to illustrate the good practices identified in the report. Incredibly, Child to Child features in two of those case studies.
Promote children’s participation in issues that not only affect them, but their wider community. It is not just child to child, but child to family, child to community.
– Dr. Celine Woznica
The first Child to Child case study highlights the importance of providing high quality training to the adult facilitators who will go on to train and support older children to subsequently coach their younger peers. Even though we know that children are incredibly capable of taking charge of their lives, it is important to have adults with the competences to effectively support their efforts.
The second case study showcases our flagship Getting Ready for School (GRS) programme, which harnesses the spontaneously occurring interactions between older and younger children to promote early learning. By participating in GRS, Young Learners develop early learning competencies, start school at the right age and achieve key learning outcomes, while the Young Facilitators acquire life skills, gain confidence and feel further motivated to stay in school.