In partnership with the Promundo Institute, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), launches this Tuesday (23) the Anti-Racist Early Childhood (PIA) strategy. The ceremony will take place at 9 am, at the Arena Carioca Jovelina Pérola Negra, in Pavuna, in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro. Around 250 professionals from the areas of education, health and social assistance, in addition to social leaders and teenagers, will participate in the event. After a lecture and conversation with specialists, authorities and young people, a workshop will be held with professionals to exchange experiences and propose new practices. The PIA is a strategy to raise awareness about the impacts of racism on early childhood development and, also, a social mobilization strategy aimed at health professionals, families, parents and caregivers on how to have anti-racist practices in the daily life of early childhood education services , social assistance and health. “We also talk about how families and caregivers can promote anti-racist parenting, an anti-racist education, regardless of whether their children are black, indigenous or white children,” said Unicef Child Development specialist Maíra Souza in an interview with the media. Brazil Communication Company (EBC). “PIA was born with this provocation, that is, with the idea of not only raising awareness about the impacts of racism, but also having something purposeful, offering ways, solutions and tools that people can incorporate and be, in fact, anti-racist”, said Maira. Development The fact that PIA is directed to early childhood is explained because this is the period of life – from zero to six years of age – in which the child’s brain develops more easily and the foundations of development are structured. “We already have numerous evidences that show that it is in early childhood that children experience racism for the first time. Between eight months and two years old, the child begins to notice physical differences, features, skin color, height and size. It is also at this stage in life that they start to internalize that there are hierarchies to these differences,” she explained. According to Maíra, it is very harmful and detrimental to child development when a small child, even in those first years of life, realizes that his features are considered inferior, that his skin is considered inferior. She begins to realize that there are these differences in treatment and this happens both in terms of games, as well as in the professional care these children receive. That’s why Unicef takes this look at early childhood, to show that racism is a form of violence that happens throughout life, but is not much talked about in early childhood. “It’s as if it didn’t exist”, Maíra pointed out. With the launch of the PIA strategy, Unicef seeks to give visibility to racism and think of ways to prevent and reduce the harmful effects that racism has on children. A series of materials will be launched, comprising four notebooks, as well as a webseries with seven videos on anti-racist parenting with influencers and experts. All these materials will be available for free throughout Brazil on the Unicef website. Concepts The notebooks are divided, at first, on concepts focused on structural, institutional and systemic racism, whiteness, unconsciousness and identity. In a second moment, Unicef technicians advise on the paths and possibilities. “The idea is always to start the discussion, but it doesn’t have a very prescriptive form”. In the social assistance section, for example, one of the paths proposed for managers is to incorporate the theme of ethnic-racial relations into home visit programs, which does not yet exist in Brazil. In terms of early childhood education, ways are offered for the teacher to carry out an exercise on which children feel more affinity, who call more attention or who offer more affection. “It is a kind of provocation, but it also brings some less subjective and more objective suggestions, such as, for example, making materials available in the classroom that have Afro-Brazilian or indigenous references, aiming to stimulate the environment with representativeness in the classroom”, he stressed. . With regard to health, attention is focused on access to rights, such as adequate prenatal care, which is lower among indigenous and black mothers than among white mothers, as indicated by some studies. Attention is also drawn to more recurrent practices, such as black and indigenous mothers receiving less anesthesia and not having access to humanized childbirth. There is also emphasis on comorbidities that are more common in black children, such as sickle cell anemia. “The idea is to delve a little deeper into these sectoral areas and also into the videos and web series, and bring this perspective of parenting. How to talk about racism and ethnic-racial relations with your children; how to teach that differences should not be hierarchical; how to value the traits of children; and how to talk and talk even if there is no joke about racism”, stressed Maíra. Territories From the launch in Rio de Janeiro, the project will also focus on seven other capitals where Unicef already has an action strategy aimed at preventing violence, which is the #AgendaCidadeUNICEF. The schedule includes launches in São Paulo (24th), Manaus (25th), Salvador (31st), Recife (6/2nd), Belém (5th) and Fortaleza (26th), in addition to São Luis, which already had a workshop pilot on May 12th. Local actors will be invited to participate in the dynamics. In the capitals, the target of the PIA are eight vulnerable territories where, in all, 8.2 million children and adolescents live, according to 2022 data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The territories where the agendas will be deepened are, in the aforementioned capitals, Pavuna, Cidade Tiradentes, Colônia Antonio Aleixo, Valéria, Ibura, Distrito d’Água, Jangurussu and Cidade Operária. In each capital, Unicef intends to expose a local context. In Manaus, for example, more visibility will be given to the agenda of indigenous influences. “Our goal is to take these materials into the hands of professionals, public managers, decision makers and, one day, hold workshops to discuss not only this topic, but what the material proposes, invite professionals to define anti-racist practices in their services, in their professional routine, in order to go further, that they are materials that are actually worked on. Therefore, we are going to these eight cities”, detailed Maíra. | The intention is to ensure that PIA’s materials have this penetration and adherence in the public network of the eight capitals and throughout the country. Taking advantage of the social strategy #AgendaCidadeUNICEF, the idea is to work closely with city halls and, after the workshops, monitor what agreements have emerged – mainly in terms of anti-racist practices – to break structural racism in early childhood. The Unicef specialist in Child Development stated that, after the launch in the eight capitals, planning will be carried out to evaluate the results achieved. Forms will capture the different perceptions of the participants and to what extent the PIA, its materials and these formative moments, manage to change the participant’s perception of the different themes. “I think we’re going to have very rich material,” she said. Inequalities Several indicators confirm racial inequality in guaranteeing rights in the first years of life. According to data released by Unicef, the proportion of black and brown babies born to mothers who have not had at least seven prenatal consultations reaches 30%, against 18% for white babies. Among indigenous children, the infant mortality rate (up to one year of age) is twice the average Brazilian infant mortality rate: 23.4 per 100,000 versus 11.9 per 100,000, according to the Mortality Information System ( YES), from the Ministry of Health, referring to 2021. Inequalities are repeated in access to education, observes Unicef. In 2019, more than 330 thousand children between four and five years old were out of school, reveals the study Inequalities in the Guarantee of the Right to Preschool, launched by the Maria Cecília Souto Vidigal Foundation, with the support of Unicef and the National Union of Municipal Directors of Education (Undime), in 2022. Unicef reinforces that the probability of black, brown and indigenous children being in this group was 25% higher than white children. In social assistance, the challenge is great. Almost 70% of children from zero to four years old who are registered in CadÚnico are black, according to data from the Secretariat for Evaluation and Information Management, of the Ministry of Social Development (MDS) and the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The estimate refers to March 2023. Activation Unicef’s desire is for the project to remain, take root and unfold. In addition to face-to-face meetings, the fund’s team intends to promote PIA activation on social networks, so that the discussion is more present with professionals and adults in families, as part of the longer strategy that is #AgendaCidadeUNICEF, launched last year which is expected to last for three years. The intention is to show that it is possible to build an anti-racist practice and that this remains in the discussion of the teams through this agenda.
Agência Brasil
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