Meet Delfena Mitchell

I have not heard back from any of the 5 people I tried to contact.  I also reached out to a colleague who had some international contacts in hopes to make a personal contact.  Although my collegue indicated she would send me contact information I have not recieved it yet so I went ahead and listened to several of the World Forum podcasts.  I am going to share a little about Delfena Mitchel.

Delfena Mitchell lives outside Belize City, Belize.  Belize is a small county just south of Mexico.  Delfena works with children in a residential facility for children of abuse.  Delfena explained that Belize has the highest rate of child abuse in the Carribean.  She talked about working with a child who had not spoken in a year.  He had been abused and had witnessed the abuse of his sister.  He had tried to return to school but was unable to and was asked to leave.  Delfena built a relationship with this child.  One day when they were on a horseback ride together he began to talk about his past.  He eventually began to talk all the time.

My biggest take away form this week's focus on poverty is that we can not get caught up thinking about poverty from a culture of poverty perspective or a stereotype.  We can not except the myths that say all poor people are drug addicts or lazy or they do not value education.  As with people with diverse abilities we need to understand cirrcumstances, recognize strengths and build systems to help create a culture that supports young children and their families to obtain good health care, nutrition and qualitiy early learning experiences so they can thrive and become successful adults.