Latin America's Baby Bust Is Arriving Early
Latin America's demographic time bomb keeps ticking.
Data published in the past few weeks confirm the quick decline in the region's fertility levels, with the number of births in Brazil falling to the lowest in close to 50 years. In Argentina, the number of newborns has almost halved in just a decade, with kindergartens struggling to find pupils. In 2024, Uruguay had more deaths than births for the fourth consecutive year. Even Bolivia, a country of traditionally large families, is about to fall below the 2.1 children-per-woman threshold necessary to keep its population constant.
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Associated Press
3 hours ago
- Associated Press
BHERC Operation Love Hosts Special Gathering To Honor Fathers Leading Through Crisis
As communities continue to rebuild from the devastating January firestorms, the Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center (BHERC) Operation Love announces a distinct celebration Saturday, June 14, dedicated to senior fathers who have shouldered the immense burden of keeping their families and communities together during one of the most challenging periods in recent memory. Following the overwhelming outpouring of gratitude for Operation Love's Mother's Day event in May that served over 150 senior mothers and their families, it became clear that the next endeavor should focus on addressing the unique needs of senior men who have served as pillars of strength for their families and communities. This experience, part of BHERC Operation Love's fourth iteration of tangible community support, provide recognition of the senior father who stands behind every family's survival story, who has worked tirelessly—often while processing his own trauma—to provide stability, hope, and strength for those depending on him. These seasoned men, drawing from decades of life experience, have become the steady foundation upon which entire extended families have relied during the recovery process. 'These senior men have been the steady hands in the storm, the voices of reassurance when everything felt uncertain,' said Sandra J. Evers-Manly, President of BHERC Operation Love. 'While they've focused on everyone else's needs, we want to focus on theirs. This celebration is specifically designed to acknowledge the sacrifices of our senior fathers and provide them with the mental health support and community connection they desperately need.' Recognized as a hidden struggle, in the aftermath of the January firestorms, many senior fathers have found themselves serving as the primary emotional and logistical anchors for their families—coordinating insurance claims, securing temporary housing, maintaining employment, and reassuring children and grandchildren—all while grappling with their own loss and uncertainty. They often carry additional burdens, supporting not just their immediate families but also serving as advisors and resources for their adult children's families affected by the fires. Mental health experts emphasize that senior fathers in crisis often suppress their own emotional needs to maintain their role as protectors and providers. This celebration aims to create a safe space where these distinguished men can step away from that role temporarily and receive the love, appreciation and support they deserve. BHERC promises an unforgettable experience featuring powerhouse vocalist Elaine Gibbs, whose world-class musical performance will uplift spirits and remind attendees of the joy that persists even in difficult times. Rev. George Cowart will perform inspirational gospel music, delivering soul-stirring melodies, food for the soul and mind that speak directly to the hearts of senior fathers who have carried so much for so many. BHERC Operation Love has crafted a comprehensive celebration that goes beyond recognition to create genuine moments of joy and connection specifically tailored for senior men. The event will include a delicious brunch, engaging trivia activities, and special prizes including recognition for the oldest dad in attendance—a tribute particularly meaningful to this celebration's focus on honoring our senior fathers. True to Operation Love's tradition of creating deeply meaningful moments, there will be a surprise special gift addressing a particular need—but attendees must be present to witness this surprise that consistently brings tears of joy to everyone in the room. Each senior father will also receive a special gift as a token of appreciation for their unwavering dedication to their families and community across the decades. This gathering represents the fourth event as part of the recovery initiative from BHERC Operation Love since the firestorms struck, demonstrating the organization's unwavering and enduring commitment to the community's long-term recovery. Unlike emergency response efforts that fade as headlines disappear, BHERC Operation Love has pledged to remain engaged throughout the entirety of the recovery crisis. 'When the flames were doused, our work was just beginning,' said Evers-Manly. 'We understood from day one that recovery isn't measured in weeks or months—it's measured in years. These senior fathers need to know that support isn't disappearing when the immediate crisis passes.' The Ripple Effect of Supporting Senior Fathers Research consistently shows that supporting a fathers' mental health creates positive ripple effects throughout entire family systems. When they receive the care and recognition they need, they're better equipped to continue providing the stability and wisdom their families require during extended recovery periods. Their influence often extends across multiple generations, making their wellbeing crucial to the recovery of entire family networks. It is believed that a father's wellbeing is directly connected to his family's resilience. BHERC Operation Love believes in supporting the entire family. By investing in these seasoned men's mental health and community connections, the organization helps to strengthen entire families and, by extension, the whole community's recovery. Committed to a sustained presence in all of the communities they serve reflects a deep understanding that disaster recovery is a marathon, not a sprint. BHERC has committed resources and personnel to remain active in the community for as long as families face fire-related challenges. 'Other organizations have come and gone, which is natural in disaster response,' said Evers-Manly. 'But we made a promise to walk alongside these families for the entire journey. This celebration for senior fathers is just one example of how we're keeping that promise.' Event Details The gathering is free and open to all senior fathers impacted by the January firestorms. Family members are welcome to join in celebrating these remarkable men who have kept their communities strong. For more information about the celebration or BHERC Operation Love's ongoing recovery efforts, please contact Sandra J. Evers-Manly, President of BHERC Operation Love, at [email protected], (323) 957-4656, or (310) 365-2080 and visit About BHERC 'Operation Love' BHERC 'Operation Love' provides vital support to vulnerable populations, with specialized focus on seniors, unhoused individuals, and those with health conditions. Initially formed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Operation Love expanded in January 2025 to deliver rapid disaster aid for those affected by wildfires and other emergencies. For seniors and unhoused individuals impacted by COVID and other disasters, the team has assisted with emergency supplies, gift cards, gift baskets for various holidays, special luncheons, transportation assistance, legal assistance, and coordinating with mental health professionals for emotional care. Since inception, Operation Love has distributed more than 25,000 blankets, 16,500 rolls of toilet paper, 48,000 essential goods, gift baskets and back bags to those in need. The organization has donated over $202,000 to individuals needing assistance, partner organizations and honored frontline workers through events reaching 2,500 participants in various cities across our nation. The Operation Love Initiative remains committed to creating a compassionate safety net for our most vulnerable neighbors in times of disaster. For more information, visit Media Contact Sandra Evers-Manly [email protected] ### SOURCE: Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center Copyright 2025 EZ Newswire
Forbes
12 hours ago
- Forbes
UNICEF Helps Dads Give Their Children The Best Possible Start In Life
On Father's Day and every day, UNICEF supports and celebrates caring dads everywhere. Thembile, a single dad, had to take on the responsibility of raising his two sons alone after their mother left the family. He struggled with disciplining his children and communicating effectively with them, until he joined a parenting support program. More than half of South Africa's children grow up in homes without a father present or a father figure playing an active role in their upbringing. UNICEF supports the South African Parenting Program Implementers Network to develop and disseminate quality parenting support resources and programs across South Africa, reaching thousands of parents and caregivers like Thembile. Being a parent is the most important job in the world. It's also a learned skill. UNICEF provides the necessary resources, support and tools fathers and mothers need to raise happy, healthy, hopeful children, from programs that encourage fathers to play with their kids from Day One to emergency assistance for families caught in unimaginable crises. Miguel Ángel Pillco Vilca, a 33-year-old minibus driver, helps his 15-month-old daughter down the slide in El Alto, Bolivia on April 23, 2025. © UNICEF/UNI788390/Laguna Growing up in Bolivia, Miguel Ángel Pilco Vilca, a 33-year-old minibus driver from El Alto, didn't have a father figure, but he's determined to be present for his 15-month-old daughter. He balances long work days with quality family time, including everyday tasks like diaper changes and supporting his wife during breastfeeding. He regularly attends the "World of Dads" program at the local health care center, where fathers share experiences and learn nurturing skills, and participated in the national forum "Dads from the Start of Life," supported by UNICEF and Bolivian ministries, promoting paternal engagement from pregnancy onward. These efforts are part of a broader UNICEF initiative encouraging fathers' early involvement in their children's development. Nearly 300 fathers in Bolivia are now part of this growing movement supporting child well-being and gender equality. Bernard, 4, his brother Balam, 9, and their father, Alphonse Batundi, head to the water point set up by UNICEF in Bushagara, located in the Nyiragongo health zone near Goma, North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on May 2, 2025. Parents caught in crises struggle to meet their children's needs and to provide them with a safe and healthy childhood, despite the circumstances. UNICEF works around the world to deliver basic services for families affected by violence, climate shock and natural disasters. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), more than 7.7 million people have been displaced from their homes by decades of armed conflict. "Life has been very hard here. Everything had been destroyed," says Alphonse Batundi, who moved his two sons to Goma, North Kivu province, to escape violence. With support from UNICEF, the family has access to clean water, a shower and toilets. Yet many challenges remain. Since fighting escalated in January 2025, many displacement sites in Goma have been dismantled. Batundi's boys, 4-year-old Bernard and 9-year-old Balam, miss going to school. 'I'm truly grateful for everything,' Batundi says. 'But we still need help. There's no hospital here in Bushagara. If a child falls ill, we don't know where to take them. We would really like to have access to health care and medicine.' Douglas Bashonga, father of seven, sits with his wife and three of their children outside their home in Bushusha, Idjwi health zone, South Kivu province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on May 1, 2025. Douglas was treated for cholera at the UNICEF-supported Kihumba cholera treatment center. When Douglas Bashonga, a coffee grower in the DRC, fell ill with cholera, his wife and children rushed him to the UNICEF-supported Kihumba cholera treatment center. 'I was very ill," he says. "I could no longer work or take care of my family. What worried me most was not being able to provide for my children, rather than my own pain. 'I was very ill. I could no longer work or take care of my family. What worried me most was not being able to provide for my children, rather than my own pain.' Thanks to the free treatment he received at the center, Bashonga recovered and eventually regained his strength. 'When I returned home, I decided to protect my family,"he says. "The doctors advised me to always wash my hands with soap or ash, to boil water before drinking it, and to remain vigilant for any symptom. I implemented all these recommendations immediately ... and that reassures me the most. None of my family members or neighbors became infected. This proves that prevention works.' Related: What It Takes to Support Children Fleeing Violence in Eastern DRC Lijay Solofa, a police officer, plays with 4-year-old Nakitah and 3-year-old Lisona, in the village of Vaitele in Apia, Samoa on April 27, 2025. In Samoa, days are full for police officer Lijay Solofa, his wife, Telesia, and their six children. Solofa always makes time to play with his kids, even the youngest, 11-month-old LJ. He knows that in the first 1,000 days, babies' brains form new connections at an astounding rate: up to 1,000 every single second — a pace never repeated again. UNICEF supports early childhood development (ECD) in the Pacific by promoting good health, adequate nutrition, safety, responsive caregiving and learning opportunities, while also addressing gender-transformative norms and violence prevention. Salimata Samassi and Adama Kone at home with the youngest of their four children, 4-month-old Massita, in Odienne, northern Côte d'Ivoire on Oct. 16, 2024. Baby Massita weighed less than two pounds when she was born at home in Côte d'Ivoire. "She was so small and fragile that we thought she wouldn't make it," says her father, 40-year-old Adama Kone. The nearest hospital was 43 miles away. "I called the hospital; there was no ambulance, but they told us to come as quickly as possible and keep her very warm," Kone says. "I took my motorcycle, with my wife, who had just given birth, sitting behind me, holding the little one wrapped up. It was the longest hour of my life." Massita was treated at a UNICEF-supported hospital in Seguelan, and spent a few days in an incubator. "Afterwards, we were taught how to do kangaroo care," Kone recalls. "We stayed in the hospital during that time. Honestly, I was so scared, but we remained hopeful. We are so happy with our angel.' Celebrate the fathers in your life by making a donation to UNICEF, to help ensure every child grows up healthy, educated, protected and respected. Your contribution is more important than ever. Right now, the lives of the most vulnerable children hang in the balance as conflicts and crises jeopardize the care and protection that they deserve. Dependable, uninterrupted and effective foreign aid is critical to the well-being of millions of children. Please contact your members of Congress and urge them to support ongoing U.S. investments in foreign assistance.
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Robert Brazil, CPS principal who pushed Socratic method of learning, dies
Robert Brazil was for many years the principal at Sullivan High School in the Rogers Park neighborhood, where he gained a reputation for implementing the Socratic method of teaching and leading efforts that improved student outcomes. 'I often say that children learn more by example than they do by instruction, and here was the living example on an ongoing basis at the elementary and senior high level,' said Carl Boyd, a Kansas City-based urban educator who in the early 1970s taught at Parkside Elementary School in the South Shore neighborhood, while Brazil was Parkside's principal. 'It was remarkable just how many educators depended upon his leadership.' Brazil, 86, died of complications from a rare type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on May 11 at the University of Chicago Medical Center, said his daughter, Patrice. He was a Hyde Park resident. Born in Memphis, Brazil grew up on Chicago's South Side and attended Raymond Elementary School before graduating from Phillips High School. He received a bachelor's degree in physical education from Chicago Teachers College and then earned a master's degree in education from DePaul University in 1965. In 1978, he added a doctorate in education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Brazil's first teaching job was at Martha Ruggles Elementary School in the Grand Crossing neighborhood on the South Side, and he later taught at Paul Cornell Elementary School in Grand Crossing and then was the assistant principal at Nikola Tesla Elementary School in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side. In 1971, Brazil became the principal at Parkside Elementary School in South Shore. 'I want to make this school a place where there are activities taking place which meet the interests and needs of the children,' Brazil told the Tribune in 1971. 'I want the school to be a place where the children want to come and be a part of — not something they come to because they have to.' In 1975, Brazil was named principal of Parker High School in the Englewood neighborhood. The school had been called out in a September 1974 Tribune series titled 'Inside Our Troubled Schools,' which described nodding off during class, students gambling in the cafeteria and the smell of marijuana wafting through hallways and restrooms. Brazil led Parker, which later became Robeson High School, until being named Sullivan's principal in 1977. In 1984, he won a grant under the Carnegie Grants Program for High School Improvement to fund the 'Paideia proposal,' an educational program developed in 1982 by philosopher Mortimer Adler and 21 other educators. The Paideia proposal was in essence a call for school reform, championing schools' revival of the Socratic seminar and urging a rigorous academic core curriculum regardless of students' backgrounds or levels. Brazil implemented the Paideia approach at Sullivan, beginning with a seminar in which teachers would question students to enlarge their understanding of the world. Brazil directed students to not only read great works but to talk about them and to think instead of having a traditional teacher-driven lecture. 'The program is an outlet for children who might not be stimulated by a more traditional curriculum,' Brazil told the Tribune in 1988. 'Some kids who are very bright cannot survive in our education system because it is too limiting. Some people think that Chicago Public Schools children can't learn. I wish those people could see these kids.' Brazil's partner, Lynnette Fu, taught French at Sullivan and then went on to become an assistant principal at Sullivan and then eventually to a role at Chicago Public Schools' central office. 'He not only had big ideas, but he made them work. A lot of people have ideas, but they might hand them off to someone else to implement, but he was the one who made them happen,' Fu said. 'He was a fantastic principal — very innovative.' Brazil's work paid off, with the school's enrollment gaining in standardized test scores each year. 'We're getting to the point where kids are learning well, not just based on scores but on how they feel about themselves,' Brazil told the Tribune in 1990. 'When they tell me they feel smart, it makes me feel good.' In 1989, Brazil was one of 20 Chicago Public School principals awarded the first annual Whitman Award for Excellence in Education Management from the Whitman Corp. 'My father genuinely loved teaching people new things. He was a born educator, but he could have been good at anything,' Patrice Brazil said. 'He loved being able to improve a school's performance and was always talking about how well the kids at his school were doing.' Brazil broadened his focus to oversee staff development for other schools following the Paideia program, and he founded the Paideia Institute of Hyde Park and served as the group's executive director. For teachers, Brazil also launched a series of immersion retreats on the Paideia proposal in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, as well as a graduate institute at St. John's College in Santa Fe, N.M. Brazil also worked with the National Board of Teacher Certification to help certify educators. Brazil wrote several books, including 'The Engineering of the Paideia Proposal' in 1988 and 'A Covenant for Change: The Paideia Manual,' which the University of Illinois published in 1991. Brazil also self-published a 100-page memoir in 2005 about his upbringing, 'Memoirs of Bronzeville.' After retiring from Sullivan in 1993, Brazil continued to train teachers in the Socratic method, his daughter said. A marriage to Marilyn Wallace-Brazil ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter and Fu, Brazil is survived by a son, Alan; two granddaughters; a sister, Vera Green. Services were held.
