Author: Nola Jones

It did not take place in a diplomatic hall or a chamber of parliament. It was probably a conference table in Spain, with professionals who spend their working lives considering what three and four-year-olds need to grow up to be decent people. Nevertheless, the statement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released by the World Organization for Early Childhood Education’s Spain chapter carried far more weight than a policy memo. It’s worth pausing to consider that. OMEP was established in 1948, most notably during the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, when the world was once again reminded of what happens…

Communities that never receive resources experience a certain kind of silence. Not the quiet of contentment, but the kind that develops gradually, year after year, as parents watch their youngest children grow through those crucial early years with little assistance. That silence has long been a reality in some parts of Argentina. For many families, early childhood education isn’t a policy debate—it’s just nonexistent due to stretches of rural distance and urban periphery. For this reason, Argentina’s OMEP Cerca Tuyo program seems like something worth considering. The World Organization for Early Childhood Education, or OMEP, has been working for many…

The most durable international alliances aren’t those formed in opulent political chambers, you realize at some point in between the paperwork and the planning sessions. They were gathered in secret by early childhood educators in Norway, Greece, Croatia, and a British non-governmental organization that just wouldn’t accept Brexit. That is precisely what OMEP UK, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education’s UK branch, has been doing. OMEP UK was already leading an Erasmus+ project with partners in several nations, advancing work that was fundamentally about something far more pressing than geopolitics: how teachers show up for very young children, at…

The fact that OMEP’s most symbolic conference of 2026 will take place in Poznań, a Polish city with its own complex memory of war and survival, while its global headquarters is located in Buenos Aires, a city that has experienced dictatorship, resistance, and a slow, hard-fought democratic renewal, is quietly significant. Even though the geography isn’t entirely intentional, it feels that way. Two cities, two hemispheres, and one unwavering conviction that kids should be treated better than what they typically receive. The theme of the 78th OMEP World Assembly and World Conference, which will take place in Poznań from July…

The Plataforma de Infancia website features a picture of a group of people seated around a conference table, documents spread out, and someone in the middle of a sentence. It’s not particularly dramatic. It appears to be just another nonprofit gathering. However, something about the image starts to feel a little different when you consider that this organization has been hosting similar meetings since 1997, long before the majority of today’s parents were considering having children at all. The Spanish Children’s Rights Coalition, formerly known as Plataforma de Infancia, was established almost thirty years ago and has worked on projects…

For over 60 years, educators in Buenos Aires have been debating, organizing, and sometimes yelling about the same thing: that Argentina’s youngest children deserve better. The building isn’t particularly impressive from the outside. Most passersby wouldn’t look at it twice. However, something tenacious and unexpectedly significant has been developing inside, or at least in the network that emanates from organizations such as it. Since the 1960s, Argentina has been home to the World Organization for Early Childhood Education, or OMEP as it is known abroad. It’s worth pausing to consider that. 60 years in a nation that has experienced a…

Defending the obvious leads to a certain kind of weariness. Advocates at OMEP Argentina are in precisely that situation in Buenos Aires today; year after year, they contend that children should have access to food, education, and legal protection, despite the constantly changing policy landscape. Working from there is uncomfortable. However, they have been doing it nonetheless, and with a discipline that is noteworthy. The World Organization for Early Childhood Education, or OMEP, has long had a presence in Argentina that extends far beyond scholarly gatherings. In times when governments have been less willing to listen, the Argentine chapter has…

This year, there is a subtly peculiar development in the field of education conferences. You can find researchers presenting papers on learning technology, curriculum design, and artificial intelligence at practically any major conference, including Vienna, Helsinki, and Austin. The discussions are intelligent, sometimes brilliant. However, if you spend enough time in the hallways between sessions, you begin to notice something that the agenda doesn’t explicitly state: the university-focused rooms aren’t hosting the most important discussions in 2026. Everywhere early childhood education is mentioned, they take place. Compared to the more spectacular events in Vienna or Helsinki, the 5th International Conference…

Modern parents have a certain type of weariness. The low-level guilt of giving a toddler a tablet in order to get through dinner is just as much a part of it as sleep deprivation. It takes place on Sunday afternoons in Valencia, in kitchens in Seville, and in apartments all over Madrid. A parent takes a 30-second breath, a child calms down, and a screen continues. Afterward, nobody is completely satisfied with it. It turns out that that guilt has been subtly growing into something more. Additionally, the World Organization for Early Childhood Education’s national chapter, OMEP Spain, appears to…

The fact that Cynthia Erivo hardly ever pursued a career in acting is somewhat amazing. It wasn’t because she wasn’t talented—anyone who has heard her sing knows that was never a problem—but rather because her initial course took her in a completely different direction. Erivo, then seventeen, started studying music psychology at the University of East London in 2004. It’s an intriguing detail that is simple to ignore. psychology of music. Not theater, not musical theater, not performance. the study of the psychological effects of music. In retrospect, it almost seems as though she already knew something that everyone else…