Nancy Germeshausen Klavans Cultural Bridge Fellowship: Quito Summer 2006

The way the office here works functions very much like my old job in public relations consulting. You are given the project you need to work on with enough information to get you started but not much more because everyone is so busy. It is then up to you to jump in feet first and start trying to pull something together based on what you were given. It is a sink or swim scenario and I thrive on it. I started by trying to first understand what is meant by social inclusion. One of the things I found was that there was not a tremendous amount of research on the topic. More often than not the focus in the past has been on social exclusion and examining various groups within a society that are excluded for any number of reasons. However such research and use of the term social exclusion made it incumbent upon the excluded groups to try and fit into a society or program. In recent years with the shift and the advancement of the term social inclusion my research showed that public policy was turned upside down.
 Social inclusion was defined as a phenomenon which involves the basic notions of reducing inequalities between the least advantaged groups and communities and the rest of society by closing the opportunity gap and ensuring that society provides support to those who need it most.  Furthermore, it needs to foster notions of belonging, acceptance and recognition. For immigrants and refugees, social inclusion would be recognized when society provides them with the opportunity to realize full and equal participation in the economic, cultural and political dimensions of life in their new country.
 

As I work to compile more and more information and read a lot more on this topic, I am impressed by various countries responses to social inclusion. As part of the framework I am to put together, I need to also examine best practices of countries that have successfully implemented social inclusion policies in education. Countries, such as the UK and Canada have been very proactive in not only their research of  social inclusion as a concept but their specific policies when it comes to educating and integrating immigrants. A great website I found was http://194.78.211.243/Documents/Mig/en/frameset_immigrant.html if this topic interests you at all.
 It’s a project that I think will take up most of my time here as there is a lot to read and get a handle on. Other projects might come up as the network here is so vast and covers topics such as SME´s, educational consulting and social protection.
 

I am thoroughly enjoying being engrossed in this reading as it is very applicable to some of the work we have been doing for our family foundation for education in Iraq. I knew that there would be many crossovers and broad lessons learned.
 Next update will give you a bit more of my experience this last weekend exploring Ecuador and its many regions. Lets just say there is truly all kinds of levels of development in this country ranging from impoverished to well sustained.
 

Till next time…..
 

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