Ph.D, has been working for over 10 years with Aga Khan Foundation (AKF). She is currently a Senior Programme Officer responsible for overall program planning, management, monitoring and policy dialogue related to AKF’s Early Childhood Development Programmes, in particular, but also including Primary Education Programmes often in close collaboration with AKF staff - in South Asia, Eastern Africa, Tajikistan, Portugal, USA and Syria. Kathy is also the Co-director of the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development, an international consortium of donor agencies, NGOs and regional networks working to improve the conditions of young children and families through knowledge networking and policy advocacy (since April 1999). She has a vast experience of working as a teacher trainer at pre- and primary levels: 2 years in the U.S., 2 years in Honduras and as Peace Corp Trainer for the Integrated Early Childhood Development Programme in Costa Rica. She represents AKF at selected international fora, particularly those related to ECD and basic education and prepares related papers, presentations and other communication materials for wide dissemination. She has also co-organized Strategy Session on ECCD global trends and future directions at the World Education Forum on behalf of the Consultative Group on ECCD, Dakar, Senegal, April 2000

Q. Why did you choose to work in the field of Early Childhood Development?

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to work with children. This may be in part because of my own family background as well as the experiences I had starting out as a Bilingual Kindergarten teacher working with mainly immigrant and migrant children in a small rural town in Southern California. In both cases, the issue of social support systems for young children and their families, especially the caregivers, is the dominant theme. Watching my father cope as a single parent, and seeing how my extended family came in and supported him created a Lasting impression. All this, I think, fed into my working and evolving beliefs of what children need, and what families need to raise and care for their children, and give them enough love and support.

Q. When did you realize that merely teaching children is not enough and when did you want to venture beyond the confines of the classroom?

When I was teaching, many of the 32 or so children I had in Kindergarten came from migrant families who moved around during the school year. Usually half my class did not speak any English when they arrived and another quarter sp- oke only a little. The families lived on very limited incomes, many were at or below the poverty line and some were illegal. I was with the children for only half a day, and then they would go home – or somewhere. Their fathers and mothers were out in the fields all day. I never knew what they were going ho- me to; I never knew who was going to be there. I wanted to go out and visit the families, and talk to the parents (I spoke Spanish). I would say that many if not most of my teacher colleagues didn’t seem to worry about this and my pr-incipal, (the head teacher) didn’t believe in making visits to students’ homes and interact with families and the students in their home environment. I grew increasingly frustrated with this since during parent-teacher conferences it seemed clear the mothers and fathers were open to and needed extra support.

By the third year, I had begun to think about working within the migrant ed-ucation system in California which would allow me to work more closely with the children and families, but my Spanish needed to be improved. I decided then to join the U.S. Peace Corps as a volunteer and was eventually assigned to Honduras where I lived for 2 ½ years in a very rural and small village. I look back at my life now and see this as a significant point of change in my personal and professional life. The frustrations I had as a teacher disappeared when I lived with a young – and newly married couple – in a one-room home in a village of twelve houses. There was no running water and electricity; I took bath and washed my clothes in the river with the other women and helped gather water from the well. My job was to work as the local coordinator for a Honduran NGO that was piloting family-centres that provided pre-school services to young children from our and other nearby communities. I trained and worked with adolescent girls (the pre-school teachers) and helped develop a curriculum for the pre-school programme. I worked with local women’s income-generating as well as with the men in raising awareness and support for our ECD programme. My earlier frustrations as a teacher disapp- eared. It wasn’t a choice of whether I co-uld only do this, or that; I was able and encouraged to work with children, youth, parents, and the wider community. In Ho- nduras, I discovered and began to work in what is now a life-long passion: understanding and finding appropriate ways to support young children and families.

I have never found distinctions between sectors very helpful – at least for getting things done on the ground. I look back at the training I had as an early childhood teacher and I find that it was very inadequate. This became evident once I started working in the classroom: there was much I needed to know but was not prepared for – one example is dealing with parents – at least in a meaningful way and beyond the 2-3 parent-teacher meetings each year. Another was working with the many needs and emotions of children – I had studied many theories of child development and had learnt how to make wonderful materials that the children could use (which was very useful). However, we did not spend as much time as I now think is necessary in applying what we learned about child development, for example in terms of observing their development and then devising future lessons to build on this. I had a basic knowledge – but could have used much more in, for example, counseling skills with children and parents.

I came to realize that fundamentally (at least for me) ECD is about working with children and their families (whoever and however constituted and defined). It’s not just about the child. In every place I have worked or visited, it seems to me we lose sight of this. Instead, we try to organize and divide responsibilities across sectors – for what may start out as understandable reasons. In the end, and specifically in terms of being clear about the ‘big’ picture in terms of young children, sectors more often get in the way. As a result, in many places, we have a narrow definition of what a teacher does, what a nurse does, what a social worker does and what a doctor does. In most places, each of these actors (and others not mentioned) do not understand each others’ roles or responsibilities – creating possibilities for overlap and territorial guarding of one’s own patch (even if there is an understanding that no one person or institution can do all of ECD on their own). Moreover, we have numerous professionals who don’t know how to interact with parents and children as human beings.

In addition, for those adults (parents/family members) who may not have attended formal schools (let alone finished primary or secondary schooling) – there is a tremendous barrier and sense of worry/fear just to walk into a school and register your child for school – let alone complain, challenge or ask questions to the teachers or heads. Too many parents feel they are not welcomed in their local schools (or health centers). The messages seem to be - you are not educated, (therefore) you are not really worth interacting with. I as a professional know what to do, you just sit and listen. You do what I tell you to do. Don’t ask me any questions.’ All of this to say that I believe there is much room for improvement in the professional training of teachers, health workers, social workers, etc.

Q. What do you think of television as a medium to communicate with children?

There are ‘good’ and there are terrible programmes on television. How this plays out across different countries varies tremendously. In some places there are thoughtful programmes which aim to support children’s learning. I would tend to say the majority do not engage at this level. However, if we return to my earlier point of children within the context of their families, then a question to be raised for parents and those of us working in ECD is “How do you see television – and spec- ifically children’s programming: as a pseudo-babysitter when you are busy, as a ‘treat’ to offer when children are ‘good’ (or to be taken away when they are not behaving), as one option that is used during the day or week for children?” Where I lived in Honduras, this was not even remotely an option because we had no electricity, and this is still true for many millions of children in the world. In urban areas like Karachi – it is more accessible and therefore may be an issue. Nonetheless, in general, some of the recent studies I have heard or read about indicated that in the United States, children who watching violent television shows display and act out in more violent or anti-social ways. In addition, there is a difference when parents watch T.V. with their children – and then discuss. The unfortunate thing with television is that one can stop communicating with those around – this is not unlike the growing numbers of children who are glued to their computers (and internet). Social interaction – and therefore learning how to ‘give and take’ in a variety of social contexts seems to be decreasing quite a lot for many – this, for me, is a very real worry.

Q. Do you think the parents use TV as a means to keep children busy while they take care of other things?

I want to expand this question beyond the use of TV since there are other issues in communities where this medium is not present that still get in the way of who does the watching over of children – and how it seems to me that parents are busier, and more stressed and often just trying to cope. We should not be surprised that pa- rents - especially mothers since they continue to bear the largest burden of childcare and household work – look for alternative strategies that will allow them to get on with their multiple tasks and concerns. The point, then, is to what extent do parents have social support systems around them that all-ow for different types of assistance, including child care to take place, in a timely and appropriate manner. Like many families here in Pakistan, I grew up with an extended family – even if not everyone was living in our home. My father (the single parent) had my grandmother (who lived with us) as well as various aunts and uncles and other family friends that he could depend upon for a whole range of issues, including for the care of his three children. We also visited my mother and our step-father and new brothers every month growing up.

Many young families don’t have such support systems around them while they are raising children and this is increasing as urbanization continues. In my view, this (the area of parent support systems) is one of the most difficult and challenging areas we in the field of ECD need to think about and work with families on for the coming years. This is particularly true for single parent households (most of which are headed by women) who are isolated or live far from their extended family or others living in difficult circumstances (poverty or otherwise). The pressures are often overwhelming and can spill over to the home environment – and therefore to the children and the care provided to them. We are all humans, we all get tired, we all get cranky, and we all have a lot of stress in our lives – no one can be the perfect parent all the time, especially when you are worrying about everything from the economic survival to children’s development. Every parent needs reassurances and assistance – emotional, practical, as well as financial at times. The thing I worry about most is not T.V., but rather seeing what (new) kinds of support systems are around or can be created. This means human support systems that help guide, provide mentoring to adults and to children, and can ensure loving and secure care for children – at all stages and ages of their dev- elopment. I am convinced that more and more we need to create and then sustain support systems for families that go beyond government or NGO assistance and support – they must emerge in and out of communities where there is mutual need and interest in the improvement of well-being for all members – from the youngest infant to the oldest member.