Feature Friday: Caren Day from 'What the World Needs Now'

[The Little Seed]

We are so excited to feature community member Caren Day this Friday! We can't wait any longer, so read below about her and her amazing vision and campaign towards helping children....

About Caren.....

Caren Day dreamed of writing a children’s book since she was a kid herself and her first venture into the world of children’s literature, You & Me, was born from these dreams. You & Me encourages children from ages one to eight to celebrate their unique qualities and embrace their differences through the use of exciting graphics and text. As a special bonus feature, a coloring book in the back gives kids the opportunity to use their imagination to tell their own story of diversity. Day, an advocate for improving childhood education and using business as a tool to support the greater good, then created the website WhatTheWorldNeeds.org, and her Two 4 One campaign quickly followed. Two 4 One: when one book is sold, a second is donated to a child in need through a partnership with Reading Partners. Says Day, “My hope is that WhatTheWorldNeeds.org and You & Me inspire people to live with an open heart and that, through our Two 4 One Campaign, we’re able to support the American educational system in a time of great need.”

And now from Caren herself.....

See Baby Discriminate – that’s the headline that screamed at me from the front cover of Newsweek a couple years ago.  I had already written my children’s book, You & Me, which teaches kids about diversity, but I had no idea that even kids as young as 6 months judge others based on skin color.  I had no idea that scientific data backed up my gut instincts and reasons for writing the book.

The article sited an extensive study of 100 Caucasian families, all with children ages 5 to 7, done by Birgitte Vittrup at Children’s Research Lab at the University of Texas.  Each set of parents were given instructions to have explicit conversations about interracial friendship with their children, some using a video as a jumping off point and some just instructed to have the conversation.  The results were surprising.

Out the 100 families that participated in the study, only 6 were able to discuss race with their children in a direct manner.  In fact, out of the group that were given no video as a lead in to the conversation, five families abruptly quit the study, some citing the fact they were uncomfortable pointing out skin color to their children.  The 6 families who were able to have the conversation with their kids, however, saw racial attitudes dramatically changed after just one week of frank discussion about race, equality and discrimination.

Kids are smart.  And less than 10% of them are color blind!  They can see that people have different colors of skin and eyes and hair.  They need to be able to talk about these differences in a direct way that allows them to break free of prejudice and embrace the differences their bound to encounter throughout their lives.  The lesson here?  Silence is not always golden.

To view and subscribe to Caren's blog visit:  http://whattheworldneeds.org/category/stories  

Founder - www.WhatTheWorldNeeds.org   Author - You & Me

Twitter:  @two4onecampaign   Facebook:  What the World Needs   YouTube:  Two 4 One Campaign