Early development

Friday, 26 June 2015 00:36 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

SRI LANKA has signed up for a $ 50 million loan from the World Bank to improve early childhood care and development. The aim is to increase enrolment to early childhood development centres so an extra 150,000 children under the age of five can have a better shot at realising their full potential.

A mindboggling 7.6 million children under the age of five worldwide die each year. More than 25 times that number – over 200 million children – survive, but do not reach their full potential. As a result, their countries have an estimated 20% loss in adult productivity. What happens during the early years is of crucial importance for every child’s development. It is a period of great opportunity, but also of vulnerability to negative influences.

Many children do not reach their full human potential because of their families’ income status, geographic location, ethnicity, disability, religion or sexual orientation. They do not receive adequate nutrition, care and opportunities to learn. These children and their families can be helped. It is their right to develop as well as to survive.

Good nutrition and health and consistent loving care and encouragement to learn in the early years of life help children to do better at school, be healthier, have higher earnings and participate more in society. This is especially important for children in poverty. A good foundation in the early years makes a difference through adulthood and even gives the next generation a better start. Educated and healthy people participate in, and contribute to, the financial and social wealth of their societies.

Early years of childhood form the basis of intelligence, personality, social behaviour, and capacity to learn and nurture oneself as an adult. There is significant evidence that links the circumstances of adversity and habits formed in early years to the non-communicable diseases of adulthood.

For a country that suffers no significant food shortages and provides extensive, free maternal and child health services, it is rather paradoxical that malnutrition affects nearly one-third of children and one quarter of women, according to UNICEF Sri Lanka.

Almost one out of five children are born with low birth weight – around 29% of under-fives are reported to be underweight, rising as high as 37.4%, in some deprived districts. As much as 14% of under-fives suffer from acute malnutrition (wasting) when their weight is compared to the weight of a normal child of the same height.

Nearly 58% of infants between six and 11 months and 38% children between 12 and 23 months are anaemic, says UNICEF pointing at low levels of knowledge when it comes to nutrition, poor sanitation and ineffective distribution of subsidies.

While the image of the emaciated child is not one associated with Sri Lanka, the impacts of malnutrition are visible in other ways. Approximately 14% of children suffer from wasting- recording a lower weight than would be expected for their height and 29% of children are under weight, registering a lower weight than would be expected for their age. Thus it is evident that the fight to give every child born in Sri Lanka a chance to reach their full-potential remains in full force.