Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

The Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Promoting Early Childhood Development for Young Children on the Move in Northern Central America will bring together project fellows who are innovating community-based responses that address the early childhood development and protection needs of children on the move and in displacement settings in northern Central America.

Hundreds of thousands of children across the Americas are fleeing violence, climate-induced disasters, poverty, and crime, with some even coming from distant regions like Africa and Asia to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Their migration journeys are often fraught with abuse, exploitation, detention, and discrimination. International law emphasizes the rights of all children to safety, protection, asylum, and family reunification, placing the responsibility on governments to safeguard them. However, child welfare and protection systems have been overwhelmed, and community-based responses are underfunded and overstretched. Nonetheless, some exceptional leaders are pioneering innovative solutions despite the limited support and infrastructure available.

This pilot project will support and learn from innovators who are using multisystem and multidisciplinary approaches to improve policies, programs, and practices that facilitate early childhood development and protection outcomes for children experiencing migration. The project aims to build and share fellows’ knowledge and capacity, cultivate their leadership skills, improve the operation of their programs, and create a mutually supportive network of individuals committed to improving systems and responses to children on the move. Over the course of the project, the network of fellows will serve as a mutually supportive group of leaders from northern Central America. This peer network will assist in the strengthening of the global early childhood development and protection fields and help fill the void of professional development and support that currently exists in the region.