Promoting Health and Human Rights "With Those Who Have No Voice" Box 1761,
Board of Directors President (CEO) Vice-President President-Elect Chairperson Treasurer (CFO) Secretary Public Health Counsel Medical Ethics Counsel Human Rights Advisor Public Relations Counsel Registrar Hal Clements
DGH Reporter is edited & designed by Monica Sanchez. You can e-mail your comments, suggestions and article ideas, or mail them to: P.O. Box 20111, London Terrace Station, New York, NY 10011. DGH is administered by an elected Board of Directors drawn mostly from past and present volunteers. The board is assisted by an advisory council composed of 100 physicians, students, retirees, artists, nurses, business people and others. A diverse group of volunteers provides the vital core of DGH’s resources, including this newsletter. There are no paid employees. DGH is incorporated in the state of Georgia as a 501(c)3 organization. Donations are tax deductible. |
Fascinating research into how the human brain develops is proving what social activists have been claiming for years: Early intervention is crucial to the development of disadvantaged children. In fact, the insights coming out of the hollowed halls of science give ‘early’ a whole new meaning. Researchers have learned that the brain doesn’t just learn a lot in the first three years, it actually changes its physical structure in response to stimulation. As the Los Angeles Times reported in Deciphering the Miracles of the Mind (October 16, 1996), “So powerful is the enriching effect of learning on the physical structure of the brain’s cells that the brain of an active college graduate may have up to 40 percent more neural connections than that of a high school dropout...The brain is so hungry for stimulation that, with proper attention early enough in life, scientists can raise a disadvantaged child’s IQ 30 points, cut the risk of some forms of mental retardation in half and correct common learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Conversely, denied proper stimulation, the brain atrophies, its neural connections withering like drying leaves.” Yet in El Salvador, education is sorely lacking. In 1992, the Ministry of Education admitted only 15 percent of children between the ages of four and six attended preschool. In 1996, UNICEF reported that between 1975 and 1995 there was a marked decrease in the use of funds for education.
Teachers attend classes approximately 2.9 days per week, while actual instruction time averages 2.5 to 4 hours a week. About 30 percent of children between 10 and 19 years of age are in the work force, and 12 percent of these children have never received any form of formal education. The DGH/MDS Early Childhood Stimulation and Development Project is trying to fill this gap in the communities it serves. (MDS was DGH's partner organization in El Salvador between 1995 and 2004.) The project, which began in 1994, is the result of DGH/MDS’ standard practice of participatory investigation–exploring the needs of the community with the residents themselves. In December of 1993, the residents of Estancia, a cantón, or region, in the District of Morazán, requested that MDM initiate preschool education. With the help of Diakonia-Sweden and in coordination with the Jesuit University of Central America (UCA), MDM responded in 1994 with a mental health program that took the form of four "kinders," formally named Centros Integrales de Desarrollo Infantil (CIDIs–Centers for Integral Child Development). In 1995, with the continued support of Diakonia-Sweden, in addition to MDS, two more kinders were added.
The CIDIs serve multiple purposes. Improving the children’s nutrition is one priority, since over 50 percent of them suffer from malnutrition. Not only are they in need of increased quantities of food, but also of protein and micronutrients, such as iron and iodine. Deficiencies such as these impede a child's ability to learn. It is not surprising, therefore, that these children have delayed cognitive growth in comparison to children in urban settings. The World Food Program of the United Nations, in coordination with the Ministry of Health, donates beans, corn, rice, and cooking oil, and the French Embassy has provided soybeans. This allows the kinders to combat malnutrition by giving the students one hot, nutritious, soy-based meal every day. Another priority of the project is to provide the mental stimulation that researchers are discovering is so vital to the brain’s development. Students in the CIDIs are divided into two groups: one for ages 2 to 4 and the other for ages 4 to 7 (the 4-year-olds are placed according to their level). The younger group’s curriculum consists mostly of games that help teach concepts such as colors and shapes, as well as songs that improve language skills. The older group is taught the basics of math and the Spanish alphabet. The CIDIs also help maintain the local indigenous culture by instructing the older group in Ullua, the language of the Lenca, the local indigenous people who are descendants of the Mayas.
The kinders are particularly important in helping the children overcome 12 years of civil war. According to UNESCO, children in former conflictive zones are experiencing many mental health problems, including difficulties maintaining interpersonal relationships, auto-medication, depression, anxiety, psychosomatic illnesses and learning problems. For this reason, each kinder is run by two mental health promoters. They are chosen by their community, evaluated by more experienced promoters and trained by volunteer specialists in child education. They then receive one week of continuing education every six weeks, have an intensive two-week course at the University of El Salvador every summer and take adult education classes throughout the year. In addition, trained psychiatrists teach them to help troubled children with techniques such as play and touch therapy. In 1994, the kinders were held in inadequate structures and improvised locations (under trees and on the "front porches" of private homes), so the communities asked that appropriate buildings be constructed to provide a safe, secure place where the children could receive an optimal education and learn to their fullest potential. In 1996, MDS was able to begin to answer this request. Through the financial support of the European Union, MDM, and MDS, technical support from FUCRIDES, and help with transport of materials by PAHO, work was started on two buildings: one in La Presa and the other in Copante (two of the six small hamlets or caserios served by the project). The British Embassy recently provided the financial aid necessary to finish the building in La Presa. The second building is well underway, but requires more funding to be completed. The remaining caserios are waiting expectantly for the construction of CIDI buildings in their communities. They have even donated a parcel of land for this purpose. MDS has responded with the construction of provisional gallerias, simple structures consisting of a roof for protection against rain and sun and small storage sheds. The CIDI buildings are designed to assist the overall goal of sustainability–the old concept of teaching someone to fish instead of giving him fish–by facilitating the education of the parents as well as the children, which strengthens community organization. For example, 65 percent of the population of these communities is illiterate and they lack access to books to better their education. Consequently, the CIDIs have a library with books for all ages, an early education room where mothers and fathers are shown how they can enrich their child's development from the moment of birth, and a kitchen where the mothers take turns cooking the children’s daily meal. Currently there are 182 children in the kinders. After graduation they go on to study in the public elementary school. Teachers at this school have commented that children who have attended CIDIs are miles ahead of the other students, both in academic readiness and social skills. NOTE: The print version of this newsletter included an excerpt from Fertile Minds, by J. Madeleine Nash, which appeared in the Feb. 3, 1997 issue of Time magazine. This article manages to make the complicated world of neuroscience research a poetic and understandable read. It explores how the electrical activity of brain cells, which is triggered by outside stimulation, actually changes the physical structure of the brain during the first years of life.
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"Every person has
the right to an education. This education should be free, basic and fundamental.... The
object of this education is to provide a complete development of the human personality and
to strengthen respect for human rights and fundamental liberties; it will favor
understanding, tolerance and friendship between nations as well as ethnic and religious
groups."