Five Whittier College students traveled to Washington D.C. this summer to present at the 67th World Organization for Early Childhood Education and Care (OMEP) World Assembly and Conference. The students joined more than 500 delegates from nearly 50 countries for the annual meeting. This conference brings together international, non-governmental, and non-profit organizations concerned with all aspects of early childhood development, education and care. Presenters of this conference also included Whittier College trustee Maggie Koong L.H.D. ’14 and Marian Wright Edelman L.H.D. ’09, who were featured speakers at the conference’s second plenary session.
Jessica Iribe ’18, Antoniette Smalls ’18, Alexandra Tamayo ’16, Angela Alvarez ’15, and Tiffany Tsui ’15 presented their work: “Pathways to Sustainability: Engaging College Students in Child Advocacy,” focused on the creation of collegiate OMEP chapters and gave concrete examples of fundraising and advocacy activities organized by the Whittier OMEP chapter.
Since 2011, Whittier OMEP has raised more than $10,000 a year for various children’s charities. One of the goals of the students’ presentation was to encourage the creation of other child advocacy groups on college and university campuses around the world. The Poets were accompanied by their advisor Valene Martinez ’05 and Judith Wagner, professor of child development and education, who is also deputy president of the worldwide organization.
In addition, Tamayo presented a poster: “Increasing Children’s Global Perspectives through Language Immersion in Early Childhood.” She discussed how language immersion tools could be used to teach young children a foreign language and spoke to the importance of learning a second language and culture.
“Today’s world is all about diversity and children must learn what it means to be diverse,” said Tamayo. “It was an amazing experience to explain my research to others that were interested in implementing such techniques in their own schools.”
Smalls also presented a poster entitled: "How to Prepare Young Children to Become Global Learners Using Literature, Foreign Language, and Non-stereotypical Activities.”
The students prepared their presentation proposals during special workshops held last January and learned of their acceptance in March. Broadoaks School provided funding for their conference registration and travel.
The students were also invited to join Next Generation, a social media based group co-founded by United Nations OMEP Youth Representative Amber Eriksson and Whittier College graduate Rebecca Robinson’15. The goal of Next Generation is to close the gap between younger OMEP members and seasoned professionals that make up the majority of the OMEP membership.
A major announcement during the conference was that OMEP’s status at the United Nations has been raised from Roster to Special Consultative Status.
