UNESCO Early Childhood Cooperating Center

Consultative Group Regional Partnership

Early Childhood Consultative Group Regional Partnership
AÇEV participates as a regional partner on efforts spent on early childhood education in this group where many international institutions such as the World Bank, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization are represented.

UNESCO Early Childhood Cooperating Center
AÇEV was named UNESCO's “ Central Asian Early Childhood Cooperating Center ” in 1999. Within this context, AÇEV has led various efforts to respond to the needs of the region. After the removal of the regional borders in 2002, AÇEV continued to share its experience and knowledge with the surrounding nations as the “ UNESCO Early Childhood Cooperating Center .”

International implementations of AÇEV's Early Childhood Education Programs
Since 1998, implementation of AÇEV's education programs geared toward mothers began in Germany , Belgium , the Netherlands and France , via various collaborative efforts. The aim of the program is to contribute to the development of children of Turkish migrant families living overseas, through supporting their mothers. The implementations aim to enable participating mothers to better understand and support the education system in which their children attend school, to participate in social work outside of the home, to make their social adaptation easier and to increase their self-confidence. These programs are also implemented in Bahrain and Jordan in Arabic, to the citizens of these countries. AÇEV trains and supports the educators who implement these programs.

Germany :
Program implementation in Germany began in Bremen in 2000, via collaboration with Migrantinnenrat (Migra e.V Bremen ), with the training of educators by AÇEV's training specialists. At the same time, again in Bremen and with the support of the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz, AÇEV-trained and supervised Turkish trainers began to provide education to mothers.

AÇEV ultimately aims to expand these programs in Germany through further collaboration with organizations working with Turkish migrant families. AÇEV's goal is to implement these programs via local partners in all regions heavily populated with Turkish and other migrant families and raise awareness among these families on child rearing.

Belgium :
AÇEV's work in Belgium has been ongoing in Brussels and Gent , since 1997. The programs are implemented with the support of the Brussels and Gent Turkish Women's Union; the Mother Child Education Program is implemented in Brussels and in Gent , the Mother Support Program is implemented. AÇEV provides supervision and consultancy support to these training programs.

France :
AÇEV collaborates with two separate organizations is Paris . The educators trained in collaboration with the association “L'Accort” have implemented Mother Child Education Program classes. Implementation of the Mother Support Program is ongoing via the collaboration established with “Elele; Migrations et Cultures de Turquie.”

The Netherlands :
AÇEV's collaboration with the Dutch Averroes Foundation began in 1997 with a trainer-training seminar. Some of the Mother Child Education Program implementations conducted by these trainers were geared toward Turkish families, while others targeted other ethnic groups and the training provided in Dutch.

Bahrain :
Mainly conducted with Turkish mothers until recently, the Mother Child Education Program was implemented in Arabic for the first time in 2002, with Bahraini mothers. This was made possible through a collaboration with the Bahrain Children's Group. AÇEV organized a trainer-training seminar and provided observation and consultancy support within this context. During the supervision visits, it was observed that the group leaders were successfully running their courses and that the mothers and children were very pleased with the program implementation. The programs have been implemented under the roof of the Red Crescent Society since 2003.

Jordan :
As a result of the training seminars AÇEV organized in collaboration with UNICEF and various Jordanian public institutions, the Mother Child Education Program is now offered by Jordanian trainers in Arabic to Jordanian mothers. The goal is to continue and expand these implementations with support from the Jordanian National Family Affairs Council.

Work being done in other Arab Nations :
As a result of the success of the Bahrain and Jordan implementations, there has been a demand from various Arab nations regarding AÇEV's programs. Consequently, discussions about potential collaboration and know-how transfers to Egypt and Syria are underway.. Moreover, to enable countries in the region to share their experiences on mother child education, AÇEV has taken steps for the formation of a Regional Consultative Committee with various partners.