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M E S S AG E F RO M T H E L E A D E R S H I P
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A letter from the CEO Dear readers, We started the second year of the pandemic believing in the Cecilia Souto Vidigal Foundation and in our contributions to early childhood. We strengthened our values and remain confident in the future we can build together. In 2021 we took a closer look at young children to understand the impacts of covid-19 in their development process. We wanted to understand, enrich and enhance the public debate around early childhood in Brazil. Each careful step we took had clear objectives and brought concrete results. This report outlines this journey. The Foundation set out to diagnose the current situation of Brazilian children. The survey “Earliest Childhood – interactions in the pandemic” showed that their behavior regressed during isolation.
Another study on “The impact of the pandemic on the development of children in preschool" showed growing inequality at the beginning of their educational trajectory. The same studies also revealed such impacts are reversible: if we work fast and do what we must, we can still reverse the harmful effects of the pandemic and ensure Brazilian children the right to develop fully. We need metrics that enable us to look ahead and act now –we know that if you can't measure it, you can't recover it. That is the idea behind the #TáNaHoraDaEscola (#TimeforSchool), a movement led by the Foundation together with 26 other institutions that share our sense of urgency to reopen schools. Schools are protective environments -it is essential to assure children's right to attend school. The suspension of face-to-face activities in schools causes severe damage to children's development.
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