Writing Samples

A new report, Young People and the Future of Emerging Markets, to be launched on 24 May in the House of Lords, London, urges their governments to address the specific needs of these young people in order to sustain economic growth, social cohesion and political stability.

The report, produced by the Emerging Markets Symposium at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, identifies key challenges:

• High levels of unemployment among highly skilled and educated as well as unskilled young people represent not just a ‘lost generation’ but a squandered opportunity to capitalise on the economic dividend of a ‘youth bulge.’

• Suicide in some emerging market countries now runs second to transport accidents (males) and maternity (females) as a leading cause of death.

• Girls aged between 15 and 19 are twice as likely – and girls under 15 five times more likely - to die of complications during pregnancy or childbirth as women aged 20 or over.

• Rates of adolescent obesity are growing alarmingly in emerging markets.

The report draws attention to findings from recent neurological studies suggesting that the brain is not fully developed until the third decade of life. This biological transition may help explain some of these vulnerabilities, underlining the need for knowledgeable and empathetic guidance from authorities, teachers and health professionals. The resolution of inter-generational tensions may depend on changing generational perceptions and improving inter-generational communications.

Ian Scott, Executive Director of the Emerging Markets Symposium, said: “This report emphasises the need for practical solutions. Because emerging markets have ample recent experience of managing rapid social change, they may be better-placed to succeed than many richer countries.”

The recommendations of the report, which are aimed at multilateral institutions, business, civil society and academia as well as governments, include:

• A re-design of systems for physical and mental healthcare to make them more sensitive to the needs of young people and better integrated with social care

• A radical overhaul of education strategies to tackle weaknesses in leadership, teacher quality, curricula and technology, and in particular to increase the extent and quality of primary education as the bedrock of subsequent education and training

• A realignment of education and training with emerging labour markets and the promotion of young entrepreneurship through measures to improve financial literacy, access to credit and other services and to alleviate legislative and bureaucratic constraints.

Ian Scott added: “The challenge for the twenty emerging market countries featured in this report is to pick and mix specific agendas from generic propositions.”

ENDS

We are working to gather real figures on the cost of social compliance for emerging market factories. While widespread adoption of supply chain “codes of conduct,” represents progress in raising standards in globalized production, we have limited understanding of the costs that these codes impose on factories.

One of Greg’s current studies reveals that multinationals do reward compliant factories (on average) with more purchase orders. However, there is a lack of empirical research on the gross cost of compliance for these factories. As a result, there is little quantitative evidence available to say, for example, “if a factory invests in achieving compliance with the buyer’s code of conduct, they stand to recover that investment in X number of years.” We believe that demonstrating this return on investment for socially responsible behaviour would offer a powerful argument for adopting “high-road” employment practices in emerging market factories.

In light of [Company Name]'s leadership in sustainable business and human welfare in your manufacturing network, we wanted to inquire about interest in a possible research collaboration. If there are individuals or groups within your company that might be interested in collaborating with us, we would greatly appreciate you passing this email along to them.

Even if you feel [Company Name] will be unable to help, we will happily accept any ideas you may have about possible avenues we could pursue to reach our end goal.

With best wishes,

Bailey Jones

They are the words that foster our dreams and creativity while growing up, and are the books passed down generation after generation. Classics like Corduroy, Play With Me and The Giving Tree, offer instantly recognizable text and tangible lessons necessary for a growing child. Worded stories fly off the shelves because they’re easy to read and don’t require much work or imagination. They fill an important need to child development and are certainly sensible purchases for early childhood education. Since wordless picture books don’t offer written word, they are more difficult to read and are often deemed unnecessary, when in fact the opposite is true.

Picture books present a chance for a child to vocalize their wildest dreams by making up stories that mean something to them. They give the parent the ability to make up new stories with different lessons every reading, and allow them to customize what the child gains from the story and can relate it directly to their life. Picture books can even grant an older sibling the opportunity to make up a story with a younger sibling, providing another role model for the young child.

Such an important entity in a child’s growth must be created to be as dynamic and appealing as possible. In order to achieve this goal, the factors that go into every final photograph in a picture book; color, subjects, and composition, must be adapted to the appeal of the child, not to the appeal of the adult.

Though there is very little information available regarding specific qualities in an image that appeal to children, one may hypothesize that certain characteristics of a photograph, given the research on a child’s perception of images, interaction with color, and development of attention, will be more appealing than others. The challenge lies in figuring out what these characteristics might be and which are the most important.

The idea for this thesis project is to use research done in the fields of attention development, perception of images, and interactions with color to create images for a picture book, composed to appeal specifically to children in the age range of about two and a half to six years old. The images used in the project, The Adventures of Pep and Ellen, are photographs that should, in theory, appeal to children. The storyline is easy to follow, and is broken into four distinctly separate parts to keep the child’s attention, and allows for great variation in each story every time it is read.

The Adventures of Pep and Ellen was shot digitally, using a Nikon D300 dSLR camera. The book itself was comprised of four stories with approximately 6 images per story. The chapters, “Pep and Ellen Clean the Barn,” “Pep and Ellen Play Hide and Seek,” “Pep and Ellen Go Sledding,” and “Pep Rescues Ellen,” all tell a story about their respective titles. More about the book and its contents are discussed later in the paper.