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This week, UNICEF Belize partnered with it's Eastern Caribbean counterpart from Barbados to begin a campaign to inform and educate parents and counselors about the importance of early childhood development and strategies they can use to ensure their children have a head start in life…

Denise Robateau - UNICEF
"Today we are having an open house to speak on an ECD strategy called care for child development, but this week we've been very involved, Belize and our government partners, in hosting member state from the OECS and from CARICOM who are here to look at the best practice of early childhood development and healthcare for child development is implemented within our sectors. So, UNICEF Belize partnered with UNICEF Barbados on a South South Cooperation, or horizontal exchange where we are showcasing some of the best practices. This week, the team, the delegation went to PG to observe the roving caregivers who are working in the communities where there are little access to early childhood development. And so the rovers were utilizing some of the information learned in care for child development. How do you play how do you communicate with your child from birth, right up to age 8 so to speak. Care for child development focuses on the earlier years in life however, birth right up to 4-5 years old."

Shelly-Anne Harper - UNICEF, Eastern Caribbean
"Belize is using this care for child development model which really emphasizes intersectoral collaboration and for UNICEF that's important because we've also been trying, with our partners across the Caribbean, to find ways where we can work closer together. Realizing that for a child under 5, you can't segment. All of the pieces need to go together. We need health, working with education, working with productive services to make sure that the overall early childhood experience is positive for all children and so our collaboration with Belize really started there because we knew that this was happening. And it was a chance for me to bring some of the other countries along with me to see in practice."

Diana Puk - Civic Education Coordinator, Min. Human Development
"We've been working for a while now among three ministries, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Human Development. We started working together looking at different strategies used to reach out to as much children under the age of 8 as possible. We noticed that the different sectors deal with age groups and we meet them at different settings. So we're looking at strategies that we can use to ensure that they get proper information on early childhood practices and stimulation and positive parenting that will help these children in their future life."

Both UNICEF offices will use strategies learned from each other to bolster their ECD programs.