By Anna Wallis
If you are looking for a family film to delight you, inspire you and fill you with hope The Beginning of Life is the one! You can watch it on Netflix. It is brought to us by UNICEF in collaboration with Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal Foundation, Bernard Van Leer Foundation, and Alana Institute.
This beautiful documentary celebrates children and the awesomeness of early childhood in the first five, formative years of live. It also rejoices in the art of parenting and nurturing young children. Above all, it brings interviews from parents and experts from around the world.
Be Awed
Whether you are a proud Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle, Teacher or carer of a young child do yourself a favour and grab some popcorn and watch this movie. I promise you will have a smile on your face throughout. We all love to watch young children’s development and delight in each new skill.
While watching The Beginning of Life, you will love taking a peek into the lives of other parents and their children around nine countries in the world. Watching the affectionate interactions with young children is simply awesome. It shows how every child is a masterpiece and a brilliant learning machine, even though we know it anyway!
Be Inspired
At the same time, this ground-breaking film brings us a very powerful message. It tells us, that by carefully tending to children’s earliest needs we can change the course of human history.
‘Effective early childhood development takes place when children feel nurtured, protected and loved. When children receive all of these key elements in their formative years of life, they have the best possible chance of developing fully.’ Pia Britto UNICEF Chief of Early Childhood Development
For this reason this film is also a great source of inspiration for all the other adults who shape our daily lives around the world: government leaders, policy makers, politicians, community leaders and educators, parents and guardians.
Be Proactive
It is our world that is changing and we need to keep up with all the major events. Children, however, begin their lives as the citizens of the world. They all have exactly the same needs irrespective of where we are in the globe, the languages we speak, our cultural and religious beliefs, hair texture, colour, or skin tones.
Language of early childhood development is universal. We can all understand it, and if listen carefully we can all speak it. As adults in children’s lives we need to do everything in our power to give children the happy, physically and emotionally secure early childhood every child deserves.
Young children of today are our next generation of leaders, teachers, doctors, architects, skilled artisans, builders athletes and life coaches. Our tiny tots need our support more than ever.
We can all help because everything children need to succeed in life – language, literacy, math, science and life skills – begins at birth. The first, five formative years are a window of opportunity to give every child the best start in life.
Watch the Trailer
You don’t have to take my word for it, The Beginning of Life – official trailer, says it all:
It is a real treat and an inspiration for all of us to do more to protect our children.
After all, to quote Nelson Mandela:
‘There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.’
