The early years of a child's life are key to their development, but some countries have a challenge when it comes to developing programs for those young children. Lois Okrainec, the Program Manager at Yorkton KidsFirst, recently had the opportunity to travel to Namibia and share her expertise.
Okrainec says that Canada and Namibia both have the same goal when it comes to early childhood development, but are coming at it from different directions.
In Namibia, the focus on early childhood comes from the social problems in the country, she explains, and the effort is part of a far-sighted goal to help with social change in the country. She notes that with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Namibia has a large population of orphans and single parent homes, which presents unique challenges for early childhood, ones that the country recognizes that it needs to face.
The twinning effort between the two countries is something Okrainec sees as beneficial for both. Namibia can learn from Canada's experience with early childhood, while the Canadians can learn how to approach these issues in a very different environment.
"There it quite naturally happens in nature, but we have had to specifically make a strategy to get children out of some programs and more into the community, it's all about culture and how your country and province has developed."
She says that the approach one has to take with a country like Namibia is to build on what is there already, and use the country's strengths to build a program.
"I found myself comparing what we have to what they have, and you have to stop looking at what they don't have and looking it what they do have, and how to build on the riches in their country, because they have many."
She notes that while progress is being made, she knows that Namibia has a long way to go. Okrainec says she met a young girl in her travels, and took a photo of some boys she knew, as well as the girl herself. From her reactions upon seeing the photos, the young girl clearly didn't know what she looked like, and Okrainec helped her figure out that it was a photo of her. She says it was one of the most meaningful events in her life, but also an indication of just how far early childhood needs to come in the country.
