Children of Chilean Change

Early childhood development is becoming a cause célèbre in Latin America. In a previous post on Tonic, I highlighted a June 7 article in the New York Times magazine about Colombian pop singer Shakira and the work she does on behalf of Latin America’s children through the ALAS Foundation. The noble goal of Shakira and ALAS: Help end poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean through ensuring that all children under 6 have equal access to health plans, early education and proper nutrition.

In Latin America, about 60 percent of children live in poverty, yet these early years for children are considered the most important period for determining a person’s future. As Shakira, a founder of ALAS, put it in the aforementioned article: “when a child is born poor, he will die poor, unless he receives an opportunity.” Many say the United States, despite its being a member of the rich countries, also is lacking in early childhood development.

One country in the region, however, is already out front on this issue. At the beginning of her four-year term in office in March 2006, Chile President Michelle Bachelet made the issue a high priority, long before the celebrity-charged ALAS movement was created, launching a program called Chile Crece Contigo (in English, “Chile Grows With You”). The first of its kind in Latin America, earlier this year it reached a major milestone when it was implemented in full throughout the country.

The program, which is modeled after a similar one in Britain, aims to guarantee all Chileans from the poorest 40 percent of households — those which earn less than 300 thousand Chilean pesos (about $540) per month — free access to kindergartens, day care and health services, from pregnancy until their children turn 4 years old. (Eventually, Bachelet wants to see improved state services for children up to 10 years old.) In addition, a financial subsidy is available to assist the poorest families with raising their children until the age of 18.

One sign of the Bachelet program’s increasing success can be found on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island, 400 miles off the Pacific coast. Carolina Rivera, director of the Junji Sandalito kindergarten, recently told the Santiago newspaper La Tercera that enrollment is up this year by an unprecedented 323 percent because of the “importance the government has given” to early child education. Says Rivera: “Families have learned that early education plays a fundamental role in the development of their children.”

Photo courtesy of the office of Chile President Michelle Bachelet.