About
ECPC member the World Organization for Early Childhood Education (OMEP), the Early Childhood Peace Consortium (ECPC), the Federation of American Woman’s Clubs Overseas (FAWCO), the NGO Committee on Migration, the Amal Alliance, the FairStart Foundation, and UNAMINA co-sponsored the following side event at the 62nd session of the Commission for Social Development on 08 February 2024.
The Situation
Over 40 million children are currently displaced within their own country or elsewhere in the world. Short-term humanitarian programs are not well suited to protect them and there are major gaps in coverage of national protection systems. A comprehensive social protection package, starting with early childhood and using new technologies, has the potential to reduce poverty, increase opportunities, foster resilience, as well as support social cohesion, by preventing tensions between displaced and host communities.
► Read the Concept Note.
Video► Keeping the Promise: Leave No One Behind! Social Protection Responses to Forcibly Displaced Children
Insights and Highlights
►Summary of the side-event discussion including five specific areas for further policy exploration.
Speakers
Read the full speaker biographies.
- Suna Hanöz-Penney currently works as the Director of International Programs at AÇEV— Mother Child Education Foundation. Her work involves building and maintaining collaborative partnerships, while she manages the transfer and implementation of AÇEV’s educational programs through partnerships with local organizations in numerous countries in the Middle East, South East Asia and Central America.
- Mercedes Mayol Lassalle is the World President of OMEP (Organization Mondiale pour l’Education Préscolaire /World Organization for Early Childhood Education) since 2020 and elected member of the Coordination Group of the Collective Consultation of NGOs on Education 2030 - CCNGO/ED 2030, to 2024. Nowadays she is Member of the Board of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE).
- Divya Lata leads the global Early Childhood Education program at UNICEF.
- Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education at NYU Steinhardt and a University Professor at NYU, and Co-Director (with J. Lawrence Aber) of the Global TIES for Children Center at NYU. He is a core faculty member of the Psychology of Social Intervention and Human Development Research and Policy programs at Steinhardt. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Institute of Human Development and Social Change and Metropolitan Center for Equity and the Transformation of Schools at NYU.
- Sherrie Westin is President of Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street. Westin leads the organization’s efforts to serve vulnerable children through mass media and targeted initiatives in the United States and around the world.
- Dr. Marciana Popescu is a professor at Fordham University, Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), and a Fulbright specialist on migration policy (2018-2023).