Impacts on Early Emotional Development

I chose to look into the Latin American and Caribbean region and focus in on Jamaica because I remember a woman talking at work that she and her husband went there on vacation one summer and they stayed at the Sandals Resort, which was beautiful, but the rest of the area was very poor looking. So, this drew my interest into looking more into this area.

-There are 313,656 children aged 0-5 living in Jamaica
- Immunization rates for all vaccines have been declining steadily since 2001 due to: difficulties in accessing health services, inadequate transportation, violence, limited health staff for vaccinations and financial restraints.
-Poor nutritional status are reflected in low birth weight, low height for age and low weight for height
-Pediatric deaths to Aids declined in 2003 by 17.3% due to the The Health Ministry which improved services provided through the Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission Program and improved care and treatment of infected children.
- Quality of education, stimulation, and care offered in some facilities leaves much to be desired. In some institutes staff are untrained, classrooms are crowded, lack of resources and inappropriate curricula.
-The children of Jamaica are also faced with violence, abuse, and exploitation. Children are being murdered, stabbed, sexual assaulted, and shot.

These children are faced with some much fear and trauma in their lives. They are fighting to live their life, but so many challenges face them. This leaves children emotionally and physically damaged. The lack of adequate health care, protection from abuse and violence, and appropriate education. There are facilities available to them, but they are so over crowded that children are not receiving the individual attention they need to be successful. To address the main threats of Jamaican childhood-HIV/Aids, violence, and exclusion-UNICEF and partners work together to ensure all children get the best start in life, receive a quality basic education and grow up protected against violence, abuse, and discrimination.

I am personally saddened to see children faced with such harmful challenges in their lives at such young ages. These children didn't ask to be brought into a life such as this, but it is what they are forced to live. I couldn't imagine waking up every morning with the thought of my child being harmed by another or losing a battle to an illness due to lack of resources available to us. I believe this makes you thankful for what we have because you never know what someone else may be facing in their life. Life should never be taken for granite.

Professionally, I believe we should be advocates for these children that are faced with a life of hopelessness, trauma, and fear. All children deserve to live a life free from harm and have medical treatment available to them and provided with an education where they can hopefully overcome the life they are living now. We should never give up on the children. We should provide them with comfort, love, and acceptance and to let them know we are there to help them in anyway that we can. If not we are in the wrong field.

www.unicef.org/jamaica/index.html