The founder of a New York City preschool that teaches children about their African heritage is one of five recipients of the 2021 David Prize, an annual award of $ 1 million intended for select New Town residents. York.
Fela Barclift created “Little Sun People“41 years ago after seeking a racially balanced preschool for her one-year-old daughter.
“I have been to at least 10 different nurseries and I have not found a brown doll, a book with black people or brown people. I couldn’t find any poster or photo of anyone who looked like him“, remembers Mrs. Barclift.
Barclift soon realized that she was going to have to create from scratch the kind of preschool she was looking for.
“I’m going to create a place where there will be a school for her, at least until she is ready for kindergarten, where she can have brown dolls, where she can have story books. In fact, I had color in the story books. I got a small team of parents together and we just colored a few story books and changed the hair.“said the new winner.
Little Sun People started out small but has grown over the years. The number of registrations now stands at 60 children, with a waiting list. And her one-year-old daughter is now a school teacher.
“We follow the school curriculum and make sure that we meet the benchmarks for what our children should have in the future. But on top of that, we infuse a lot of history, culture, manners, information, perspectives, thoughts of people who are people of color, you know, in the present and in history.“she added.
“the courage and the vision to change”
The David Prize seeks residents of the city of New York having “courage and vision to change“The future. Each winner receives $ 200,000 over two years. The award is named after Brooklyn promoter David Walentas and is funded by his family’s foundation. Barclift was chosen from among 5,000 nominees.
“The David Prize is like the first opportunity for us to be really seen, to go out and to be encouraged. And so the work we do, it’s like there’s a greater sense of worth.”
Ms. Barclift plans to use the prize money to create a afrocentric educational guide that she can share with other educators. She hopes that this program can be applied nationally.
“It takes years to get people to understand how to implement such a program, but you have to start somewhere“said Ms Barclift. She maintains that” if we manage to complete this teaching guide in a year, because we have set aside a period of one year to do it and publish it, and at the same time we are starting to work on the professional development, we can help teachers get to work. “_
According to Ms. Barclift, children learn the foundations of their lives between birth and age five. She believes her program helps give children of color a sense of pride.
“We’re just making connections with the fact that there is so much that our kids can be proud of, which I think is kind of a ballast and a foundation that helps them stand up against the very systemic racism which they will face if they are of color, unless something changes in the near future“. dit Fela Barclift.
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