I haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I'd put up this "sneak preview" of my most recent collaboration, with yet another truly awesome group.
I will quote their website: "The Early Child Development Mapping Project (ECMap) was contracted by Alberta Education for a five-year period to conduct research on early childhood development in Alberta and build community coalitions to respond to local needs. ECMap is part of the Government of Alberta's Early Child Development (ECD) Mapping Initiative, which will use the research results to support communities and families in ensuring that all children have the best possible start in life."
Since my real job these days (when I'm not drawing pictures) is parenting, you can imagine that the work these inspiring people have been doing hits pretty close to home for me. (Yes, I am nursing a baby while I type this!)
I will quote their website: "The Early Child Development Mapping Project (ECMap) was contracted by Alberta Education for a five-year period to conduct research on early childhood development in Alberta and build community coalitions to respond to local needs. ECMap is part of the Government of Alberta's Early Child Development (ECD) Mapping Initiative, which will use the research results to support communities and families in ensuring that all children have the best possible start in life."
Since my real job these days (when I'm not drawing pictures) is parenting, you can imagine that the work these inspiring people have been doing hits pretty close to home for me. (Yes, I am nursing a baby while I type this!)
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Not only have they been compiling data about Alberta's children, these folks have also been tirelessly (and creatively!!) providing resources to parents and communities in order to help the children of this province thrive. I attended their two-day Spring Gathering in Edmonton a couple of weeks back, and one of the things we did was collect some of the inspiring stories about local projects onto an enormous map. I actually stood on a stepladder to draw the top parts. Here are a couple of pictures from that event.
And here's just one story from a community on the map: a very cool-sounding lady in Calgary's North East (she sounds like what my German host mother used to call a "Power-Frau") operates a preschool in her home, for children whose families don't have the resources (transportation, time, cultural familiarity, etc.) to get them to school. This sounds like a pretty fabulous home-grown initiative to me.
I am looking forward to writing more about this group, since (as I've written elsewhere - here, for example) Early Child Development is uppermost in my mind just about all the time! But things have been too busy and now I'm in Edmonton again to draw some more pictures tomorrow for another interesting group of movers and shakers. Stay tuned!
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