Roving in Belize

Krista Schmidt is a senior officer for Corporate Partnerships at the U.S. Fund.

I just arrived this week in the beautiful Central American nation of Belize, a middle-income country of about 310,000 inhabitants situated between Guatemala and Mexico, to participate in a UNICEF field visit. Although the population is small, the size of Belize is quite large proportionately, and there is a melting pot of races, languages and cultures from one region to the next.

In the ocean-front city of Toledo, we visited a UNICEF-supported "Roving Care Giver Program" (or "RCP") in San Marcus, one of the communities in the Toledo district. This program was created to address the developmental needs of disadvantaged children up to age 3 who don't have formal access to early childhood education. The program is a great example of UNICEF's unique ability to create programs tailored to the needs of the child. Without this simple intervention, the children of San Marcos start life out without the tools they need to thrive.

In Toledo, you can find Rover Programs in seven communities. Here, caregivers speak both English and the local language and meet individually with approximately 18-20 families for an hour a week to teach the mothers and their children developmental skills and offer health and nutrition counselling.

We met Manuela, a "Rover" who set up a play space with books, toys, games and musical instruments in an open space under a tin roof just outside the home of Rosa,. Rosa, age 27, is a mother of three and she and her youngest child, Michelle, have been in the program since Michelle was one year old.

Manuela works with children like Michelle, teaching early stimulation activities. She started out with sock puppets with cute animal faces. Smiling the whole time, Michelle and the other children sang along with the sock puppet to a variety of songs, all in English, and then moved into other games that focus on learning. It is a great way to teach the children English, while respecting and promoting their native Mayan languages, so that they are prepared once they enter school, where most classes are taught in English.

Another great activity that came from Manuela was turning "trashables" into toys. We saw a cardboard box turned into a game board. Used soda bottle caps are used as "pawns," and with a magnet underneath, Manuela asks Michelle where the triangle is, and Michelle moves the magnet underneath the board to make the bottle cap land perfectly on the triangle (did I mention she's only three!?!).

I burst into applause and Michelle beamed. It is wonderful to see that she's receiving social and intellectual stimulation that is helping her brain develop connections that will be crucial to her later in life. She only knows that she's surrounded by a group of adults who love and support her.

Belize is the fifth country to join the "Roving Care Givers Program," and UNICEF is a major funder of the program. It was an inspiring program to see in action and one of the unique ways UNICEF works in tandem within the local community to give children an early start to best equip them for a safe, healthy childhood and a great start to an education. It has been proven to have a positive impact on the lives of the mothers, their children, their families and the rovers.

I feel so honored to see how UNICEF is making a difference in the lives of children and their families in Belize. What a great program!