week 3- speaking of poverty

I have been in contact with Sarah Klaus who is the director of the Network Early Childhood Program, Open Society Foundation, UK Sarah Klaus is Director of Early Childhood Programs (the Network Step by Step Program) at the Open Society Institute (OSI).    The Step by Step Program, OSI’s flagship program, was initiated in 1994 to promote reforms that support universal, accessible, quality early childhood education and development in Central Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.  OSI’s early childhood work now extends globally with an increasing focus on advocacy, policy, and development of leadership to support populations at risk. 

Sarah has worked with OSI since its inception.  She explained to me that with all of the political and civil unrest in Central Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that poverty has run rampant.   So far since the inception of step by step the tangible provisions have been implemented throughout the area which include early childhood educational programs for both children and their parents and a different level of initiatives that are aimed at iradicating the developmental gaps that stem from existing impoverished communities.