Week 1: Professional Contacts and Resources

Week 1: Professional Contacts and Expanding Resources This week I was not able to get a solid contact from all my emails, still waiting for someone to hopefully come through. While waiting I went ahead and listened to the world forum foundation’s episode 6 with Meridas Eka Yora who is the founder and director of the institution Fajar Hiayah for Islamic Education and Director of the Yayasan Fajar Hidayah Foundation. Meridas developed three boarding schools for children orphaned as a result of that devastation in Aceh. Aceh, a special territory on the Southern tip of Indonesia, was the closest land to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, in which more than 225 Indonesians were killed and 500,000 left homeless. Meridas talked about how he started the foundation and that it helps many children and has grown to over 2,000 students as well as other children in need. There are seven schools as of 2009. (www.worldforumfoundation.org) The organization that I am interested in is the: Association for Childhood Education International (www.acei.org). This organization was founded in 1982 and they are involved on the international level so they can help advocate for children everywhere. ACEI also advocates for teachers and parents. They have a blog, radio broadcasts, e-news and global news as ways to communicate. I will continue to explore and share over the next eight weeks.