Early Years,the organisation for young children formerly known as NIPPA, is the largest non-governmental organisation in Northern Ireland working with children aged 0-12 years and their families and communities. The work of the organisation enshrines a children’s rights based approach and endorses the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as a core pedagogy.
Founded in 1965, the organisation has a long history of looking ‘outwards’ at the playgroup movement elsewhere with networking, partnership and learning from outside of N Ireland remaining underpinning principles of its work ever since.
In 1994 Early Years became an Intermediary Funding Body delivering the childcare and early education measures of the EU Peace Programme. Since then over £40 million has been invested in young children, their families and communities, with recognition by the EU that such an investment can begin the process of building a more peaceful, stable, tolerant and inclusive society.
As a result of this role, Siobhan Fitzpatrick, CEO, Early Years was invited to speak at the World Forum on Early Care and Education in Athens in 2001. This international meeting of early childhood professionals from 80 nations was the beginning of Early Years connecting around the needs of children and families in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, other regions experiencing conflict and regions with internationally renowned practice to share good practice from Northern Ireland and learn from others.
Early Years has also formed a strategic partnership with CCF (Christian Children’s Fund) Inc. With common goals and a commitment to promoting high quality care, education, family support and community development, regionally, nationally and internationally, both have learned from each other’s work and explored opportunities for collaboration. Representatives of both organisations attended each other’s annual conferences and held study visits to projects and early years settings in N Ireland and Eastern European countries such as Albania, Belarus, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine. Peace II funding enabled the consolidation of this relationship and the development of a shared training programme and capacity building work with the local CCF Inc staff. Early Years also hosted study visits to N Ireland for the group to familiarise them with early childhood settings, developing strategies for supporting partnership working and governance, and leadership for non-governmental organisations. The programme also looked at democracy, advocacy and relationships with politicians.
Early Years also works with ISSA (International Step by Step) withSiobhan Fitzpatrick being elected to the ISSA Board in August 2007. The International Step by Step Association (ISSA) is an innovative network of early childhood development professionals and organisations from 26 countries primarily in Central/Eastern Europe and Central Asia, working to make quality early childhood education accessible to all children. Being a membership association that focuses both on capacity building among the network and on promoting an advocacy agenda, ISSA’s work is very similar to that of Early Years creating an opportunity for the two organisations to learn from each other and to further strengthen their cooperation.
Early Years continues to work through the International Working group on Peace Building with Young Children to bring visibility to the work within early childhood with young children to support peace building and to help young children respect those who are different. The publication “From Conflict to Peace Building – The Power of Early Childhood Initiatives” brings together the experiences of eight countries experiencing conflict and highlights the evidence that the engagement with young children and their families is vital in building peace.
Early Years is an active member of Eurochild, a network of organisations and individuals working in and across Europe to improve the quality of life of children and young people. Through its membership of Eurochild, Early Years has access to information on policy development at a European level and the opportunity to influence international institutions such as the European Commission, European Parliament, Council of Europe and the United Nations.
Early Years is also an active participant in Network NI, a network of organisations from Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland wishing to develop partnerships at a European level.
To learn more about Early Years and their work visit the Early Years website.
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