News article
The recent experience with the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the "professional isolation" of early childhood education practitioners, as the possibilities for mutual connection and sharing of practices have been greatly reduced. It also highlighted that the digital competencies of professionals need to be strengthened.
Against this backdrop, the idea of developing a green education project that enables valuable international exchanges among early childhood educators via virtual study visits was born.
Issa Practices
Baytna Hubs is an initiative between Amna and Help Refugees, supported by Open Society Foundation, to scale up a specialist Early Childhood Development (ECD), called Baytna, which has been developed within the context of the Greek refugee crisis.
News article
Building Bridges - Bridging the Gap
Supporting wellbeing, learning, development and integration of young refugee and migrant children is a guidebook which aims to assist and inform the work of kindergarten teachers engaged in kindergartens in refugee camps on the Aegean islands, but can also be of help in various kindergarten settings.
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The Toolkit aims to support the work of nursery teachers with young refugee children and their families. It consists the Guidebook with methodological and theoretical guidelines; Activity cards with examples of activities for children under 4 years of age organized in 3 clusters: Welcoming the child = Welcoming the family, Dictionary with key words and phrases in Greek, French, Arabic and Farsi; Belonging and We are all different, we are all equal.
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A guidebook which aims to support and inform the work of kindergarten teachers engaged in kindergartens in refugee camps on the Aegean islands, but can also be of help in various kindergarten settings.The guidebook besides hints on how to support kindergarten teachers, addresses topics such as creating safe, well structured, child friendly, and stimulating environments in camps; providing psychosocial support to children and families and dealing with trauma; supporting children who do not speak language of instruction.
Resource
Everyday experiences are being lost behind the statistics about the COVID-19 pandemic. This is especially true for those already marginalised, such as displaced men, women, and children. At Refugee Trauma Initiative (RTI), we spent time listening to the communities we work with to hear what life has been like during the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictive measures.
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Refugee Trauma Initiative and our partners deliver Baytna - a trauma- and identity-informed model of Early Childhood Education for refugee children and their families living in Greece. Baytna was being implemented across five centres up until early March 2020, when delivery was halted due to government regulations related to COVID-19.
News article
In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic led to a strict lockdown in Greece, playful and in-person interactions suddenly came to a halt at the Baytna program - an early childhood program developed by Refugee Trauma Initiative (RTI) for refugee children and their caregivers.
News article
A new publication from the ISOTIS project focuses on successful inter-agency work for lower socioeconomic status, immigrant and Romani Families in Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal and the UK.
News article
As asylum seekers and refugees have arrived in significant numbers in Europe and North America in recent years, many countries have struggled to address the newcomers’ basic reception needs and provide effective integration services. Young children comprise a substantial share of these arrivals, and many have experienced significant trauma and stress that pose serious risks to their cognitive, psychosocial, and physical development.
