Young Children in Humanitarian and COVID-19 Crises

March 19, 2024

Young Children in Humanitarian and COVID-19 Crises

A Book Launch Event Examining Innovations and Lessons from the Global South

The long-term consequences of COVID-19 have been tough for children around the world, but even more so for young children already in humanitarian crises, whether due to conflict, natural disasters, or economic and political upheaval. Young Children in Humanitarian and COVID-19 Crises: Innovations and Lessons from the Global South (2024), edited by Sweta Shah and Lucy Bassett, investigates how organizations around the world responded to these dual challenges, identifying solutions and learning opportunities to help to support young children in ongoing and future crises. Drawing on research and voices from the Global South, this book showcases innovations to mobilize new funds and reallocate existing resources to protect children during the pandemic. It provides important evidence on understudied and overlooked vulnerable populations, recognizing that researchers from the Global South are best positioned to fill these research gaps, contextualize findings, and support the uptake and adoption of recommendations by local decision-makers and practitioners in those same contexts.

This online book launch event will feature speakers from Colombia, Philippines, Lebanon, Bangladesh, and South Africa as they discuss implications of the book's findings for practitioners, policymakers, donors, researchers, and students interested in humanitarian contexts, early childhood development, and early childhood education.

This event is convened by the Georgetown University Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues in partnership with the Brookings Institution and the University of Virginia's Humanitarian Collaborative.

Photo courtesy of Julián Ruiz, IRC Colombia.

Participants

Grace Boutros

Grace Boutros is the senior partnerships and development coordinator at the Arab Network for Early Childhood (ANECD) and the Arab Resource Collective (ARC). She has a B.A. in clinical psychology and is an early childhood development expert, particularly focusing on parenting, mental health, and gender-based violence. She is based in Lebanon.

Ahsan Mahmud

Ahsan Mahmud is International Rescue Committee Bangladesh’s education coordinator. He leads work on research, implementation of early childhood development, education and information and communication technology programs, and teacher professional development. He has a master’s degree in education from the University of Dhaka. He is based in Bangladesh.

Mari Payne

Mari Payne is the director of education and outreach at International Impact at Sesame Workshop South Africa. She is based in South Africa.

Joy Sampang

Joy Sampang is the early childhood care and development advisor at Save the Children Philippines. She is also co-lead of the Save the Children Early Learning Working Group at the global level and a steering committee member of the Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood. She was an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines. She is based in the Philippines.

Estefanía Sirlopú

Estefanía Sirlopú is International Rescue Committee Colombia’s education coordinator. She has over 10 years of experience in educational products and services design within the social innovation field, including managing projects that aim to solve challenging issues of communities affected by migration crises. She has a degree in industrial design from the National University of Colombia. She is based in Colombia.

Tabassum Amina

Tabassum Amina is an assistant professor and leads the mental health work at BRAC Institute of Educational Development at BRAC University. She has experience in the integration of community based mental health services into early childhood development work in the humanitarian context and mainstream education sector. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and master’s degree from Columbia University. She is based in Bangladesh.

Lucy Bassett

Lucy Bassett (moderator) is an associate professor of practice at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and co-director of the Humanitarian Collaborative at the University of Virginia, as well as co-founder of ChildArise. She has worked to support young children through international organizations, NGOs, academia, and as a preschool teacher. Young Children in Humanitarian and COVID-19 Crises: Innovations and Lessons from the Global South (2024, co-edited with Sweta Shah) is her second book.

Joan Lombardi

Joan Lombardi (moderator) is a senior fellow with the Georgetown University Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues and a Senior Scholar at the Georgetown Center for Child and Human Development. Over the past 50 years, she has made significant contributions in the areas of child and family policy as an innovative leader and policy advisor to national and international organizations and foundations as a public servant.

Sweta Shah

Sweta Shah (moderator) is currently a fellow in the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and a research fellow at the Georgetown University Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues. She co-founded the non-profit ChildArise. She has a Ph.D. in education from University of London Institute of Education, as well as over 20 years of experience in the development and humanitarian sectors and over 15 years in early childhood development. Young Children in Humanitarian and COVID-19 Crises: Innovations and Lessons from the Global South (2024, co-edited with Lucy Bassett) is her second book.