In conversation with... Samia Kazi, Chief Operating Officer, Arabian Child
We have been speaking to Mrs Samia Kazi, Chief Operating Officer at Arabian Child. Find out here about the amazing work the foundation does for Early Years education in the Middle East, as well as what inspires Mrs Kazi to lay the foundations for sustainable quality in education.
What is your area of expertise?
I am a child advocate at heart and I believe children are our greatest teachers and this is why I dedicate my work to serving young children. I studied for my graduate certificate at Harvard University specializing in Leading Change in Education. My Masters degree as well as my PhD degree that I am perusing is in the field of early childhood policy for quality improvement in early years systems.
It is fascinating how much influence we can have on children’s lives when they are so young. In the first 1000 days of life, every experience that they have, good or bad, is defining the architecture of a their brain. When children have consistent rich positive experiences, they grow to be resilient, prosperous citizens that give back to their family and community. This is my passion. How do we build systems in our communities to ensure that every child, regardless of their nationality, social class, or colour, get access to quality experiences that will help build their future? What do those systems need to look like? What kind of support do we need to give parents? What kind of early years programs do we need to provide? What teacher qualifications do we need? What community services do we need? And how do we put all of this together to make sure that young vulnerable children get equal access to it?
How did you get into your current role?
I always knew I wanted to do something for children, and from a young age I knew I wanted to do something to serve the community. Ten years ago, when my first daughter started going to nursery in the UK, I was fascinated with how her educator interacted with her, how they guided her learning, and how they involved me and my husband in our daughters learning. We were awestruck! Because of this, upon our return to the UAE, we wanted to build our own nursery. We worked with some consultants from Harvard University to create a thorough plan for a high quality nursery and we took it to the local Ministry for approval of license. When they saw our plans, they were so impressed with our work, they advised us not to open a nursery, but to help guide other centres in their quality improvement efforts. We were also working under guidance of UNESCO to raise awareness in the community about the importance of early childhood education and care. We conducted research studies, made presentations to top policy makers, and held a series of events as part of our awareness campaign. That was the beginning of Arabian Child. Today, we have successfully trained over 2000 individuals, and we are the first centre to be recognized by CACHE UK to deliver their qualifications in Arabic. Furthermore, we are the first training excellence centre conducting child protection training in partnership with the Police Scotland College, combining childhood development for law enforcement officers. We are also the regional affiliate of the Council for Professional Development in Washington DC, helping educators to obtain their early years credentials.
How does Arabian Child work?
It is a private not-for-profit organization. We take globally renowned systems and we adapt it to the local culture. This is what we do best. If there is an international system that we would like to adapt, we analyse it, compare it to other systems from other countries, we test it locally, and we put effort into piloting it and contextualizing it. We then work with local policy makers to embed it within the government legislation in order to achieve sustainability and most importantly to help create change in education.
Sometimes, the solution we need may not be available internationally. In these cases, we create our own programs, and seek international accreditation and endorsement. Jawda, the regions first quality improvement program, is an example of such a case. Where a similar solution was not available, or not applicable to our culture and our region, we worked for several years to create this program with local and international consultants from different countries to create this magnificent program.
What is your opinion on Education around the world?
I think that we are having similar problems. We do not have enough funding for quality early childhood education and care. Programs need more support and resources to help deliver quality. It is important that we understand that quality is not something that can be defined easily. When designing programs, we work to ensure that it will always be about the needs of that one child, in that one family in that single neighbourhood. That will be the foundation of their success.
Who is the person that inspires you the most and why?
I would have to say that the people who inspire me most are simply; babies!
Babies (and children), for me are the most important thing in the world. When I look at them, I am humbled, I am reenergized and I am motivated to continue the daily struggle and challenges of my work. They are so intelligent and their learning ability is several times that of an adult. Babies are citizens of the world….as per Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl (an expert in neuroscience, brain development and language acquisition). Babies listen to words from their environment, and take statistics from the sounds that they know and then start shaping their brain architecture to build their language abilities based on those statistics. Babies are also natural scientists. Babies as young as 8 months old not only pay attention to how often something occurs but that they may actually assign probabilities and make predictions about events based on their observations. Babies are forgiving, kind, and loyal individuals. Babies seem to empathize with the distress of others - crying in response to the cries of other babies and stroking or offering toys to those who seem to be upset.
So you see there is so much to learn from these magnificent humans, they are my teachers.
“Children make your life important”. ~Erma Bombeck
Random Question:
If you could invent something that hasn’t already been invented what would it be?
I am not sure if this has been invented yet or not, but I have yet to find it. I would like to invent a collection of developmentally appropriate toys that are made for the Middle East region that help children develop an understanding of morals, values, and peace. These toys should be strategically designed in a way that teachers or parents can use them with their children. Simple yet effective. Perhaps one day, who knows?