Background
Vision & Mission
Our world’s children are the most important key to unlocking a more peaceful and sustainable future. They - and the homes, schools, communities, and systems in which they are embedded - must be equipped with the capacities to address global challenges individually and collectively.
Global TIES for Children envisions a world in which all children have equitable access to quality resources and opportunities that enable them, their caregivers and teachers to thrive. As a global research center, our mission is to contribute to a robust and culturally-grounded science for program and policy action that promotes children’s holistic learning and development.
We believe that research knowledge – from sociocultural to neuroscientific and economic evidence – is key to maximizing the impact that policies and practices can have on the ground in improving children’s potential around the world. But we also recognize that research is not the end, but the means to collective and sustainable learning and improvement.
The Context
Children today face unprecedented environmental, social, political, and economic challenges that urgently require coordinated global action. The extraordinary events of the past several years – a global pandemic, the resulting economic crises, severe human-induced climate events, new armed conflicts – have underscored the challenges our planet and societies will face over the next century. At the same time, hundreds of millions of children and youth are constrained from reaching their full developmental potential, due to the ongoing crises of poverty, violence, discrimination, forced migration and climate change. More than 100 million people, nearly half of whom are children, are displaced by war and crisis, while 250 million children under the age of 5 are at risk of failing to reach their developmental potential, including many affected by crisis.
While these children and their families face enormous challenges, they also demonstrate remarkable resilience, resistance, and adaptation - especially when supported by the adaptive strengths of family, school, community, and systems and by program and policy interventions informed by evidence.