Spending thirty years writing position papers in committee rooms and still thinking those papers are important to a four-year-old in South Auckland seems almost counterintuitive. However, that is basically what OMEP Aotearoa’s longest-serving members have done and still do with a tenacity that verges on silent defiance. With support from UNESCO, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education was established in Prague in 1948 and now has operations in over 70 nations. It has a tiny chapter in Aotearoa. Its seasoned leaders, some of whom have been involved since the early 1990s, firmly believe that local classrooms, despite their lack of funding and political neglect, are genuinely impacted by global advocacy frameworks.
It’s a belief worth considering, in part because it contradicts the majority of people’s views on early childhood education. The industry frequently feels very local, both in New Zealand and elsewhere. Ratios are a concern for parents. Teachers are concerned about their pay. Centers are concerned about surviving the upcoming change in policy. At ECOSOC, no one is debating OMEP’s consultative status in a morning tea room. However, the organization has a seat at tables where children’s rights language is drafted, discussed, and ultimately codified into the kinds of frameworks that governments refer to when allocating budgets because of its special consultative standing with the UN Economic and Social Council. Or don’t.
An example of how this is implemented locally can be found in OMEP Aotearoa’s recent submission on the Treaty Principles Bill. The group argued against laws that it believed compromised the rights of indigenous children by citing international rights frameworks, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. That’s the pattern: global values used as leverage in a fight that is clearly local. It remains to be seen if it is effective. Some seasoned advocates feel that these submissions are ignored, read by few, and taken up by even fewer. However, for those who have witnessed early childhood slip off political agendas in the past, the alternative—silence—feels worse.
In ways that would have seemed improbable decades ago, the work’s global component has grown. OMEP currently conducts a multi-national water rights project, works with UNESCO on education for sustainable development, and co-hosts webinars that link practitioners from Bologna to Wellington. Participants in a recent session on incorporating sustainability into early learning probably would not have otherwise met. Mercedes Mayol Lassalle, the organization’s current world president, speaks about these projects with a genuine sense of urgency, encouraging committees to participate, show up, and be present. It is genuinely unclear if this energy will result in actual policy changes.
Observing OMEP Aotearoa’s seasoned leaders reveals something more difficult to describe than optimism. Institutional memory could be the cause. They recall a time when early childhood care wasn’t even considered a line item. They recall fighting to have Kōhanga Reo recognized as a legitimate educational setting. While government reforms swirled overhead, reshaping workforce development councils and vocational education systems without always consulting the teachers themselves, they observed seasoned educators at institutions like Te Ohaaki Marae running child-centered programs. These leaders appear to have a long-term perspective that more recent advocates occasionally lack, having witnessed cycles of attention and neglect.
Admittedly, this work has a tension at its core. Declarations around the world move slowly. Kids grow up quickly. Long after the children it was intended to protect have moved on, a position paper approved at a World Assembly in 2024 may have an impact on a funding decision in 2028. The leaders of OMEP appear to be aware of this gap, perhaps even more so than their public declarations indicate. Nevertheless, they continue to show up, drafting, submitting, networking across time zones, and working under the assumption that structural change—no matter how small—lasts longer than a single budget cycle.
They might be correct. It’s also possible that the days of small national committees having significant influence at the UN through consultative status are long gone. However, it’s difficult not to feel that something would be lost if these advocates stopped their diligent, patient, and unwaveringly dedicated work.
