Alderney | December 21st, 2020
As we all prepare for possibly the weirdest holiday season of our lives… I reached into my bookcase for this book by Antony Costello, The Social Edge. I didn’t really know why this book made it all the way to Alderney when I had limited space for the things I brought to the island – but it did, and I think I now know why this is.
His radical new argument lays out a new science of cooperation based on 20 years of studying community participation though what he calls, ‘sympathy groups’ in Bangladesh, India, Malawi and Nepal. A sympathy group being the smallest social group outside the family. He sets out the power, ingenuity and tenacity of small groups. I love what he says in this video about a woman’s group in Nepal where the women were addressing the healthy growth of their children. Here is an extract:
Clare
Dear Friends,
This annual round up is for all of you: our dear friends old and new and it’s for anyone who joins our community in 2021. I’d be delighted if you could forward this newsletter to any family, friends or colleagues you think might be interested in our work.As we all prepare for possibly the weirdest holiday season of our lives… I reached into my bookcase for this book by Antony Costello, The Social Edge. I didn’t really know why this book made it all the way to Alderney when I had limited space for the things I brought to the island – but it did, and I think I now know why this is.
His radical new argument lays out a new science of cooperation based on 20 years of studying community participation though what he calls, ‘sympathy groups’ in Bangladesh, India, Malawi and Nepal. A sympathy group being the smallest social group outside the family. He sets out the power, ingenuity and tenacity of small groups. I love what he says in this video about a woman’s group in Nepal where the women were addressing the healthy growth of their children. Here is an extract:
…the woman were engaged; they took ownership, and they created their own strategies. Science would predict that this wouldn’t work but social interventions are non-linear, they work in very unusual ways, not like a vaccine, one thing leads to another and thing can explode (meaning grow very rapidly and effectively – ed). Today we focus obsessively on individuals and we’ve forgotten our social edge…His call to action is that… “Science must help our policy makers to create an ecology for sympathy groups on a large scale.” Not only is this super-relevant to our way of working, but isn’t it also worth considering as we cope in our bubbles and start to think about the world again without the scourge of this pandemic? How do we want it to be organised? What sympathy groups have helped you? What other sympathy groups can we build? How can we start building back in our own way among our own friends and colleagues? I’d love to know what you think. We have a bit more about this on the blog.
Taking a break!
I’m taking a break now until 4th January and I have this gut feeling that 2021 is going to be a great year for Children for Health. We must have kept our heads above water for good reasons! We don’t know what will come about as a result of our huge efforts to build new partnerships… but whatever it is its going to be exciting! There is always a new dawn. Here is a picture of Tobias and I keeping our heads above water and swimming at dawn on Sunday December 20th.
Highlight of the year!
The highlight of the year was a field trip to Mozambique in February and the last time I was away. On the last day of my visit, the Government of Mozambique invited Children for Health to scale our nutrition and health programme across the country. This was formalised in October and had such a long delay as the Ministry of Education was a ‘little distracted’ between March and September! However, we now have the letter in our hands, and we are fundraising to begin the work in a phased approach next year. This amazing meeting at the Ministry in Maputo was preceded by a wonderful week spent with a group of thirty 9-14 year olds at Changara Primary school, Tete who helped Bibiche Sangwa and I demonstrate to the staff of the school, to their head, to community members and to education officials from the District and the Provincial education offices just HOW resourceful and competent children can be. Read more about the trip and view our slide show.On the blog this YEAR!
We’ve been working on on the blog a lot this year and we’re really pleased with the result! Check our all our 2020 posts below, by category. Subscribe to our RSS feed if you haven’t yet to ensure you never miss a post! Our newsletters will always be sent out to our community, join us now. Newsletters- Newsletter for Quarter One April 2020
- Lockdown Week of 13-19th April, 2020
- Lockdown Week of 20-26th April, 2020
- Lockdown Week of 11-17, May 2020
- Lockdown Week of 18-24, May 2020
- Lockdown Week 8-14 June, 2020
- Lockdown Week 15-22 June, 2020
- Newsletter Week of 22-28 June, 2020
- Newsletter Week of 29 June-5 July, 2020
- Community Newsletter | 2nd November 2020
- Community Newsletter | 16th November, 2020
- Community Newsletter | 23rd November, 2020
- Community Newsletter | 30th November, 2020
- Community Newsletter | 9th December, 2020
- The Phone Of The Wind: The Telephone Box that Helps Families Deal with their Grief
- What is a Good School?
- Adolescent Brain Development
- Tips for Distance Learning
- Let’s Dance!
- Lovely Videos from Music House for Children
- Games for Child Protection
- 10 Year Old Girl Sets Up Face Coverings Project
- Musical Fun Time 6!
- Healthcare Information for All
- Childhood Trauma in Children 10-14 | An International Study
- Child Participation Assessment Tool
- Achieving Gender Equality Requires Placing Adolescents at the Center
- Webinar on Youth Engagement
- Feedback | Collaborative Learning | Peer Learning
- Nutrition Education Resources for Working with Children and Young Adolescents
- The Empowered and Empowering Educator
- Enabling Education NETwork (EENET) | FREE Training Materials
- Study of Teaching Strategies & Practices
- Broken Edges Problem Solving!
- Disease Control Priorities: Child & Adolescent Health
- Teacher Training with Teach2030 Courses on Smartphones
- Best Practices in Mobile Learning
- What Works in Girls’ Education
- Deaths from HIV, TB & Malaria Could Double in 12-months
- Teacher Competencies in Health Education
- WHO Report on Vision October 2019
- Inside the mind of Tedros | 10 Key Points
- COVID-19 | The Children for Health Response
- The Story of Coronavirus from Global Health Media
- A Child Rights Response to COVID-19
- The Role of Children in Building Community Support for the Covid Vaccine?
- School children the key to curb spread of viral infections?
- My Hero is You | A New Storybook for Children on Covid
- 100 Health Messages in 18 Languages
- Drafting Messages on Menstrual Health for Young Adolescents to Learn and Share
- Stop Diarrhoea in Lagos, Nigeria
- Effective Action for Adolescent Nutrition | WHO Guidelines
- PCAAN 2020 Mozambique Adventure
- Report on our Field Work in Changara, Mozambique
- Tribute to Bibiche Sangwa | Our International Woman of the Year
- Exciting Conversations with Stowelink
- Two New Stars in the Children for Health Sky!
- Participation, Protection and Provision for All Children Everywhere
- Do you have an Origin Story?
- Joy in Andhra Pradesh!
- Super Better Children For Health!
- Building an alliance with SuperBetter
- NEW! FREE! Eye Health & Vision Resource Book for Educators
- NEW! FREE! Oral Health Poster!
- Girls in Sports | Our New Storybook!
- Child Mental Health and Well-being in the Pandemic | Our New Storybook
- How to Help Build a Tippy Tap!
- The Memory Line
- Think-Pair-Share Method
- Children for Health and Kaizen
- Games Children Play Around the World
Clare