The International Human Rights Law Clinic, the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity (UC, Berkeley) and the Immigration Law Clinic (UC, Davis) have recently released a policy brief entitled “In The Child’s Best Interest? The Consequences of Losing a Lawful Immigrant Parent to Deportation”.
The brief reviews the current state of immigration law in the United States and the impact of the deportation of “lawful permanent resident parents” of more than 100,000 children (of which, more than 80,000 are US citizens). A harrowing look at the impact of such deportations on children’s lives, education and relationships.
Category: International
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Consequences of losing a lawful immigrant parent to deportation
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One World, One Family, Many Cultures, IPSCAN conference
IPSCAN – the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, sponsors the upcoming conference One World, One Family, Many Cultures: Strengthening Children and Families Affected by Personal, Intra-Familial and Global Conflict Sept 26-29/10 in Hawaii. From the conference description:
“Our theme, One World, One Family, Many Cultures, recognizes that in spite of our differences we live in one world that is a global family made up of many cultures that can work together towards a common goal of strengthening families, and preventing abuse and neglect of our children. The world faces many challenges with unfortunate conflicts among nations and tragic effects of armed conflict on our families, children and communities. The increase in violence among family members and its painful effects on our children have also challenged us to find ways to strengthen families and prevent family violence. Knowing the value of diversity in our efforts to prevent harm to our children, we invite the nations of the world to share their cultural experiences, values, and traditions to empower the youth of our nations to work together”.
Conference sub-themes:
1. Cultural Perspectives in Strengthening Families and Protecting Children
2. Identifying, Treating and Preventing Family and Sexual Violence
3. Impact of Armed Conflict on Families and Children
4. Family Strengthening: A Key to the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
5. Youth Empowerment in the Prevention of Generational Child Abuse and Neglect.
For more information, visit the conference website. -
Citizenship: A birthright lottery?
Should folks fortunate enough to be born in the ‘developed’ world be obliged to share their privilege with those less lucky? Author – and Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism, Ayelet Shachar thinks so. In her new book “The Birthright Lottery”, Shachar investigates the accident of birth and proposes several ways to reconsider (and bestow) citizenship.
Arguing that citizenship status has been arbitrarily given in most nations by birthright and that a child born in Canada ought not have such an unfair advantage over a child born in a poor nation. Among Shachar’s suggestions is a levy on “the inheritance of citizenship” or that citizenship be awarded based on the individual’s “genuine connection” to a country. Shachar asks important and provocative questions on what responsibilities global citizens have to each other. -
Call for NAME conference proposals: Empowering children and youth
The theme for the 2010 NAME (National Association for Multicultural Education) conference is “Empowering Children and Youth: Equity, Multiculturally Responsive Teaching and Achievement Gaps”. The international conference runs from Nov 4-6, 2010 in Las Vegas NV.
Deadline is April 17, 2010. For more information and to access the online submission form, see the conference website. -
Toronto's Hot Docs festival offerings on multiculturalism, integration, equity, racism & child rights
Among the showings at Toronto’s annual Hot Docs film festival, running from April 29-May 9, 2010 are:
In the Name of the Family ~ about Aqsa Parvez and her so-called honour killing
Listen to This ~ Pianist Thompson Egbo-Egbo starts a music program at his former school in Toronto’s Jane-Finch community
Babies ~ just babies in settings around the world (also see film website)
Grace, Milly, Lucy … Child Soldiers ~ the lives of Ugandan child soldiers
The Day I Will Never Forget ~ about female genital mutilation in Kenya
Made in India ~ about tourist surrogacy and the reproductive industry in developing countries. -
Empowering children and youth ~ Call for proposals for the annual NAME conference
The (US-based) National Association for Multicultural Education will hold its next – and its 20th – conference November 4-6, 2010 in Las Vegas, NV. The theme is Empowering Children and Youth: Equity, Multiculturally Responsive Teaching and Achievement Gaps. From the call:
“Since the founding of NAME, it has become clear that empowerment of children and youth, and the urgency of addressing achievement gaps, dropout rates, and the larger equity issues within which they are embedded, includes marginalization on the basis of race, class, language, sexual orientation, gender, disability, and religion. In fact, rather than being separate and distinct communities, they overlap in complex ways, suggesting that teaching should be multiculturally responsive. … Further, these issues transcend concerns within the U.S., inviting international dialog about diversity, equity, multiculturalism, and justice”.
“The vitality of NAME flows from its diverse membership. Thus, it is NAMEs policy to ensure presentations by and about diverse ethnic, racial, gender, language, religious, socioeconomic, sexual orientation, disability, and geographic groups. Presentations by teachers, school administrators, community activists, government and organization officials, higher education faculty, and others interested in the conference theme are encouraged. Students (high school, undergraduate, and graduate) and international scholars, practitioners, and activists are also encouraged to submit proposals”.For more information, and to submit an online proposal (deadline is April 17th), visit the NAME website.
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Feb 21 is International Mother Language Day
International Mother Language Day was first proclaimed by UNESCO in 1999 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity.
Related resources:
mylanguage.ca ~ mylanguage.ca, a project of Dr. Roma Chumak-Horbatsch, Ryerson University’s School of Early Childhood Education, provides evidence-based research and multi-lingual resources to support parents, teachers, early childhood practitioners and other interested service providers in maintaining and protecting minority languages spoken by children and families in Canadian homes. This year, graduate students of Dr. Chumak-Horbatsch invite the Ryerson community to the School of ECE to commemorate International Mother Language Day.
facebook page ~ set up by Vox Humanitatis, a non-profit organization that supports “less resourced cultures” in maintaining their culture and languages.
UNESCO International Symposium: Technology and the Mother Tongue: Friend or Foe? ~ as part of a 2-day event to mark IMLD, this symposium will bring together researchers, academics and other experts in Paris to discuss “bridging global and local languages and translation, mutual understanding and stereotypes”.
UNESCOs Multilingualism on the Internet ~ the 2004 online issue explores “the linguistic impacts of the Internet and at filling this knowledge gap”.
Leave a comment here in your mother language – and tell us what it is!
Dzi?ki! (Polish)
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Call for nominations: Children's Peace Prize 2010
The KidsRights Foundation annually awards the Children’s Peace Prize to a child “whose courageous or otherwise extraordinary efforts have made an impact on behalf of the rights of the child”.
Former award winners include AIDS activist Nkosi Johnson, South Africa, “slave” Om Prakash Gurjar, India, peace activist Mayra Avellar Neves, Brazil.
The Children’s Peace Prize includes prize money, which will be invested by KidsRights in specific projects related to the struggle for peace and interests of the winner.
Do you know a child who works on behalf of the rights of children? Deadline for nominations in April 1, 2010. -
Cultural perspectives in strengthenting and protecting children
One World, One Family, Many Cultures: Strengthening Children and Families Affected by Personal, Intra-Familial, and Global Conflict, sponsored by the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN), will take place September 26-29, 2010 in Hawaii. The conference will bring together service providers and advocates to discuss family-strengthening for those impacted by various avenues of conflict. Among the five subthemes of the conference are “Cultural Perspectives in Strengthening Families and Protecting Children” and “Impact of Armed Conflict on Families and Children”. For more info, visit the ISPCAN website. (Source: BRYCS).
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Call for papers: Libraries in a multicultural society
The IFLA Section Library Services to Multicultural Populations will hold an IFLA Satellite meeting in Copenhagen, August 17-18, 2010. From the call for papers: “We are living in a changing world where populations are moving and local societies are becoming increasingly diverse – socially, economically, ethnically, linguistically and culturally. In the meantime, the physical library as a concept is under increasing pressure in the twenty-first century”.
The Danish Library Centre for Integration and Copenhagen Public Libraries are organising this post conference/satellite meeting held in conjunction with the annual IFLA conference held in Gothenburg (Sweden). Paper are being invited to discuss some of the following possible topics:Best innovative practice: Library projects that have excelled in creating new and innovative services to multicultural or bicultural populations either using new technology, new partnerships etc.
Critical perspectives on how libraries, as institutions in the twenty first century, meet the ideals: free access to knowledge, accessibility for all and inclusiveness.
Dynamic facilitation of books, music and films in minority or traditional languages and general library services to multilingual communities.
1. Inclusive communication strategies and awareness of the communicative aspects of physical space and presentation.
2. Recruitment strategies – how do we recruit library staff (on all levels) in the future, so that employees reflect the local community?Submission are due March 1, 2010. For more information, contact Susy Tastesen, Copenhagen Public Libraries: +45 33 66 67 66 or abstract@iflacopenhagen.com.