PAKISTAN ALLIANCE FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD |
Volume 13| October-December, 2021 |
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Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Greetings from PAFEC & Happy 2022!
The world is continuing to go through the challenges thrown up by the COVID-19. While the pandemic continues to challenge us on all social, economic and political fronts, it has also created unprecedented opportunities for change and transformation. Thankfully, we are learning and adapting every day, and finding new ways about ourselves and the world around us. We are gradually moving away from traditional learning processes and adopting NEW technology and more innovative solutions in the field of ECD. We at PAFEC are ready to face this brave new world and are exploring new ways to reach out to parents, children, ECD practitioners, teachers, students and policy makers with research based knowledge and practical solutions. In 2021, we initiated some new partnerships with public universities, civil society organisations and donors to fight COVID-19 and to stop the community spread of the virus through creating awareness, and capacity building.
PAFEC launched some new initiatives in 2021: a series of webinars, covering the theory and practice of early childhood development through informed parenting, augmenting existing ECD courses and developing new ones in collaboration with public universities, designing and offering an online course for ECD practitioners, parents and caregivers, titled, Early Childhood Development - The Promise of Endless Opportunities. So far, we have offered the online course to two cohorts and the third course will be offered in January 2022. PAFEC will continue to stay connected with its partners and beneficiaries, offering more learning opportunities, providing technical support and disseminating knowledge for the promotion of ECD.
As part of knowledge dissemination, PAFEC circulates quarterly e-newsletter with updates and useful ECD resources from around the world. This newsletter also brings you latest knowledge from authentic sources and best practices. Enjoy reading it and give us your feedback to improve it.
Happy Reading and Stay Safe!
Khadija Khan
Chief Executive Officer
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Pakistan Alliance for Early Childhood(PAFEC) and Protection and Help of Children Against Abuse and Neglect (PAHCHAAN) in collaboration with Pakistan Pediatric Association-Child Rights Group (PPA-CRG) conducted a Pre-Conference workshop on” Promoting Positive Parenting” at Serena Hotel, Islamabad on December 10th, 2021. This pre-conference workshop was organized before the inaugural of 20th National Pediatric Conference which was held in Islamabad on 11th-12th, December 2021 with the theme of “Preventing Stunting, Building Nation, Saving Future”. The event entailed a consultative Panel Discussion to promote positive parenting through policy advocacy and awareness raising among masses in Pakistan.
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The second cohort of online certificate course on Early Childhood Development – The Promise of Endless Opportunities kicked off with a cake cutting ceremony on Friday October 15, 2021. More than 100 participants including students and faculty members from partner universities (Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, Allama Iqbal Open University, Fatima Jinnah Women University, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Lahore College for Women University, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University, Peshawar, The University of Haripur, Sukkur IBA University) and some individual participants joined the course. PAFEC has designed this certificate course for students, teachers, parents, aspirants, caregivers, researchers, and entrepreneurs, to develop foundational understanding of Early Childhood Development, and Early Childhood Care and Education focusing on the child’s development, learning, and care from Zero to eight years of age among the participants.
The course encompasses early development, learning and care with a particular focus on discovering connections between theory, research, policy, and professional practice. The course aims to provide a clear understanding of the holistic development of a child’s social, emotional, cognitive, language and physical needs in order to build a solid and broad foundation for lifelong learning, optimal development, and wellbeing. More specifically, the course focuses on phases/stages of child development, significance of 1st 1000 days, factors affecting brain development, milestones, positive and playful parenting, the Single National Curriculum Framework on Early Childhood Care & Education, global best practices, Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on Goal 4.2, Nurturing Care Framework, UN Conventions on the Rights of the Children (with a focus on the four principles, i.e., best interest of a child, non-discrimination, survival & development, and participation) and health, nutrition standards for children between the ages of Zero to eight, landscape of ECD in Pakistan, rationale for early investment and proposed ECD/ECCE programme for Pakistan.
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Pakistan Alliance for Early Childhood facilitated a series of meetings of the partners, RUPANI Foundation and Allama Iqbal Open University who have signed an MoU to establish a center of excellence for ECD at the Allama Iqbal Open University. One of the key meetings which took place in this regard was the meeting with Dr. Hamid Jalil, Member Food Security, Climate Change & Nutrition, and his team from Planning Commission of Pakistan. The purpose of the meeting was to brief the Member and his team on the establishment of the Center to seek the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform’s support in mobilising funds for the Center. The Member and his team were briefed on the objectives, academic programme, staffing, budget, management , drawings, architectural designs and the cost estimations of the Center. The Member appreciated the efforts and progress made on the project so far by the partners. He further said that the soft part/academic aspect of the Center should be focused more than the hard part/building. He emphasised on the the following key areas and suggested to add them in the academic progarmme:
•Develop ECD Management Information System to collect data from authentic sources of information in the country and generate reports
•Conduct research on the contributors of ECD/key components of nurturing care and comparatives studies on the effectiveness of different interventions for ECD made by the government as well as by the private sector
•Disseminate research findings amongst key stakeholders
•Prepare policy briefs for advocacy and engagement of key stakeholders for the promotion of holistic, inclusive and multi-sector ECD in the country.
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Glimpse of the Center of Excellence Meeting held at Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad |
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The 8th meeting of the Board of Directors, Pakistan Alliance for Early Childhood (PAFEC) held virtually on Wednesday, October 27, 2021. The meeting began with the recitation of verses from Holy Quran, followed by welcoming the meeting participants and opening remarks by Ms. Fakhira Najeeb, Director/CEO PAFEC. Moving forward, Ms. Khadija Khan CEO, PAFEC presented updates on the activities carried out and progress being made against different deliverables since the last Board Meeting which held in June 2021. The Board appreciated the initiatives taken by PAFEC management to promote holistic Early Childhood Development in the country with the engagement of various stakeholders.
Mr. Sibtain Baig, Finance Manager presented the findings and reports of External Annual Audit of Financial Year (FY) 2020 – 2021, Spot Check carried out by E&Y and Micro Assessment carried out by PWC for the UNICEF funded projects. The Board approved the audited accounts, appointed auditors for the Financial Year 2021 – 2022 and guided to engage an experienced person as Tax Consultant. Before ending the meeting, the Board discussed different options for financial sustainability of the ‘Alliance’ and proposed some key steps and asked the management to work on these steps and to explore more options.
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Glimpse of the Zoom Meeting |
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Ms. Khadija Khan, CEO PAFEC and Mr. Muhmmad Rafique Tahir, Senior Educational Advisor to RUPANI Foundation attended the first event of United Ammies, a forum created by Ms. Shafia Rafique to empower mothers through sharing experiences of raising children, best practices of parenting around the world, Early Childhood Development and related matters, prenatal and postnatal care and other aspects of life such as health, hygiene, marital harmony, homemaking, income generating sources, entrepreneurship and more. The event was held at Pakistan Boy Scouts Association Islamabad on 4th December 2021. Ms. Wajiha Qamar, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training MoFE&PT was the chief guest of the event. The event was attended by a large number of parents, especially mothers, children and other guests. Certificates were awarded to children on their best performances in speech competition. |
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Qudsia Mahtab Mehmood has recently joined Pakistan Alliance for Early Childhood (PAFEC) as a Technical specialist ECD. She has a diverse background as communication and social marketing technical expert, researcher, trainer, writer and a successful 11-year track record of working with the development sector in Pakistan on child rights, early childhood development and gender-based violence. |
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A joint initiative of Shahid Afridi Foundation and PAHCHAAN which is providing medical health facilities to the mothers and children of Malikpur, Lahore, which includes Medical Consultation, Nutritional Assessment and Counselling, Vaccination, Growth Monitoring of Children, Family Planning, Antenatal & Postnatal care, Psychological Support and Adolescent Health as well as supporting active research based on skills and developmental program. |
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PAKISTAN ALLIANCE FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD (PAFEC)
https://www.pafec.org
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