The Right to Laugh

Nikki Gamer: Hi everyone, this is Nikki Gamer for Catholic Relief Services. And welcome back to Behind the Story, a podcast series that invites you to celebrate the people behind 75 years of our history—the people we serve, our partners, our staff … and especially the supporters who make our work possible.

In our last episode, we spoke to Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo about the women who inspire us. And today we’ll be focusing on how we see the future … especially for the children and families in most urgent need.

We’ll be having a conversation with two remarkable women who have devoted themselves to this work…

Dr. Shannon Senefeld, our vice president of overseas operations. Dr. Senefeld is a champion of programming that ensures that children are raised in families so they can learn and grow to their greatest potential. And, she’s a mom of four children of her own.

And we’ll talk to Sister Pauline Acayo—one of the Little Sisters of Mary Immaculate—who works for CRS in Kenya. Sister Pauline has devoted her life to helping families on the margins—of violence, hunger and disease—raise healthy children. And she’s been inspired by the results she’s seen.

Welcome to you both.

Nikki Gamer: So, as I understand it, one of the most critical times of a child’s life—early childhood—happens from birth to age 8. And sometimes it’s important to remember that the simplest things are the most important to children, right? Like love, and play, a nurturing environment. And so many times we take those things for granted, but for some of the people and some of the children that we work with, love and play is not given. So Dr. Senefeld, can you tell us about the role of play in a child’s early development? Why does a child need to laugh and play?

Dr. Shannon Senefeld: I think every child deserves the right to laugh, and what they need to be able to do that is love. They need to know that they’re cared for. They need to know that they’re safe. They need to know that there’s some stability in their lives, and they need to feel like they’re protected and in an environment where they can truly be themselves.

Dr. Shannon Senefeld: Scientifically speaking, we know that children whose emotions and well-being have been neglected over their lives, that they have much poorer outcomes. As adults, they’re much less likely to get jobs. They’re much less likely to finish high school, and to have less personal achievement in their lives as well. So we know that the children really need to bond emotionally, and I think that for me is one of the most important things. It’s that one person loving them, knowing that that person’s always going to be there for them.

Nikki Gamer: Sister Pauline, do you want to share? What happens to a child when they don’t have the opportunity to play?

Sister Pauline Acayo: With many children I’ve interacted with, when a child has no opportunity to play, that child is not happy at all, cannot even smile. Always the child wants to be alone, and play helps the children to learn a lot, which means that child is missing a lot of learning.

Sister Pauline Acayo: Play helps a lot for them to develop cognitively. The child is not able to express his emotion. Children, they express their emotion more in play, so when a child miss that, he’s not going to express emotion in play. When the child plays with the mother, there is that bonding. With the father there’s that bonding. Play is together with communication. You can’t separate the two.

Nikki Gamer: Do you have a story of your work where you saw a child who—where play was just was missing?

Sister Pauline Acayo: Yes. I’