INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS

Nicky, an owner and director of a child care center on the Western Cape of  South Africa, has agreed to be an email partner!   She bought a failing preschool, and turned the building into a child care center.  Her center provides care for children ages 2 through 6, and a few after school children through 4^th grade.  Her total enrollment is 72 children, divided into three classes.  She has about 20 years of early childhood experience.

Nicky tells of the people of South Africa.  She comments on the three races in her country.  The Blacks, the Colours, and the Whites.  Colours are mixed race people.  The Blacks live mainly in squatter camps, where no White person would dare go.  The camps are not segregated, but very few others live there.  The camps are huge, and surround major airports.  Homes are constructed of scraps, cardboard, plastic, newspaper, almost anything.  There are also many poor White people, who live in low income areas, and are not as noticeable, since there are not as many as the huge number of poor blacks.  About 20 years ago, schools were de-segregated.  That is when Nicky began her teaching career.  There is a school for each neighborhood, and since people generally live within their own socio-economic class, the schools now considered classist instead of  racist.  Some are very poor, attended mostly by the Black and Coloured children.   Often, the classes are so large that there is standing room only.  Many of the teachers are illiterate.  Other schools are more modern, mostly attended by the Whites.  These schools are well funded, have qualified teaching staff, and manageable class sizes.  The predominant language taught is all schools is English.  There are about 11 different African languages spoken by the blacks in their homes.  Nicky’s preschool is in a city, and she has a mix of cultures and races attending.  She has Black, Coloured, and White children, Christian and Moslem, mostly English speaking.  Recently, she has had an influx of immigrant Black, French speaking Nigerian children.  When I asked Nicky about the starvation and poverty that we, as Americans, hear about on the news from Africa, she commented that it does not exist in her country.  She also stated that she cannot deny the stories we hear.

I have also created a contact with a person from Australia.  Her name is Susan, and she works for the Department for Communities in Western Australia.  She notes that Australian citizens have a public health system which covers basic health and hospital care.  The current contentious political issue is the immigration of illegal arrivals on boats from Indonesia, carrying people from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern countries.  Australia’s immigration policy encourages the migration of skilled workers entering under the normal process.  There are currently labor shortages in some industries, and migration is a way to search for more skilled laborers.  The school system has had an ESL system in place for about 30 years.  The child care sector has had an Ethnic Resource Unit since the 1980’s.  The systems provide an interpreter service where necessary for any immigrant, and one on one support for the children for a number of weeks until they are settled in child care or school.  These systems also provide cultural advice and multicultural resources for service staff.  Australia is not currently in a recession, as the government acted very quickly at the beginning of the world crisis.  Banks were regulated, and citizens have not suffered financial woes.       

These two contacts are very similar, yet very different.  Both are professionals, and both are knowledgeable about the early childhood field.  However, the countries that these individuals reside in are vastly different.  I will be interested to compare and contrast the information I receive from both these knowledgeable women, and to see how our country compares!