United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was created in
1945. UNESCO’s mission is to assist in
building peace, decrease poverty, and develop an intercultural dialogue, with
education as a principal activity aiming towards this achievement. Their vision is one of holistic and humanistic quality of education
worldwide, with the assumption that everyone has a right to education and the understanding
that education plays a fundamental role in human, social and economic
development (UNESCO, 2014).
As I
explored the site, I read an article, “The Review of Social Protection
Indicators in Early Childhood” (Mahon & Heymann, 2012). The report looked at different ideas of social
protection as it related to children/families and current international and
regional ways to observe and assess the social protection of them. Current sources of social protection data are
examined, and those significant to the welfare of children are identified.
Following the review, a selection of indicators is defined. The outcomes are
developed and studied to determine how children are affected and in turn what outcomes
were measured and the recommendations.
This
report had four recommendations.
(1) Ensure that working families can maintain a decent
standard of living through such forms of social protection as minimum wage
policies and family allowances;
(2) Policies and programs in place that allow families to
maintain a decent standard of living when parents are unemployed or unable to
work, such as unemployment insurance, work injury and disability benefits, and
sickness benefits;
(3) Policies and programs that assist families in meeting
their needs when special circumstances arise or significant life events occur,
such as maternity and paternity benefits, and benefits paid for sick and
disabled children; and,
(4) Forms of protection that give children adequate
access to parental time, such as working time polices, maternity, paternity,
sickness, and annual leave policies. (Mahon & Heymann, 2012)
This report was
very shocking. Globally there are agreements which recognize social protection
as a human right but there still remains inadequate social protection for most
of the global population. Recent estimates state more than half of the global
population is without access to any form of social protection, and in the
world’s poorest regions fewer than 10% have protection. In the absence of adequate social protection
coverage, the adverse effects of poverty, defenselessness and exclusion are heightened.
Families are left vulnerable to extreme material deprivation (Mahon & Heymann, 2012).
It is crucial
that children and their families have social protection. When they do not there
are detrimental effects on the physical, cognitive and emotional development of
children. Globally organizations that advocate for children and their families
are important. We see the same theme globally as we do locally; children must
have protection and support to develop in an appropriate manner.
My hopes are
that we globally align for children by protecting them and giving them opportunities
to be the best that they can be.
References
Mahon, A., & Heymann, J. (2012). The Review of
Social Protection Indicators in Early Childhood.
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002157/215740E.pdf: McGill Institute for
Health and Social Policy.
