Professors Elsie Le Franc and Sally Grantham-McGregor, did The University of the West Indies, the Caribbean and themselves proud, in October 2006, when they captured the first United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Award for Excellence in Child Research in recognition of their substantial and innovative body of work in the interest of children of the Caribbean.
The main criterion for the award is that the researcher’s work should have had a lasting impact on the lives of children and should have been widely recognized with national and international impact on policy and practice affecting children. Professors Le Franc and Grantham-McGregor, well known researchers, who have served The University of the West Indies and the region well, fit the bill, beautifully.

Professor Grantham-McGregor who moved to Jamaica from the United Kingdom in 1965 built an outstanding career in research on child development at The UWI (Mona) between 1967 and 1995.
Some of her seminal work demonstrated a link between nutrition and child development, but she is perhaps best known for her work in early childhood stimulation in which she demonstrated the link between lack of stimulation of young children in Jamaica and poor development.
She developed a home visiting model in early childhood interventions for disadvantaged children in Jamaica and other developing countries which became known as the “Roving Caregivers Programme” and played a pivotal role in developing the proposal which led to the establishment of the Caribbean Child Development Centre.

Professor Grantham-McGregor, who returned to the UK in 1995, is currently Professor of Child Health & Nutrition at the Centre for International Child Health & University of London.
Her early work as Professor in Child Health & Nutrition, Tropical Metabolism Research Unit, UWI (1991–1995) and before that as Lecturer & Reader at the Unit (1974–1991) as well as Research Fellow at the Regional Child Development Centre and at Paediatrics, UWI, is an invaluable legacy of dedication to the children of the Caribbean.

Professor Le Franc, Professor Emeritus, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social & Economic Studies, at The University of the West Indies (Mona), has conducted extensive research in a range of areas including Health, Equity & Human Resource Development as well as Family & Household Structures; Interpersonal Violence & Aggression; Poverty Measurement & Policy Issues.
She recently completed work on family, gender relations and reproductive health in the Caribbean and domestic violence, gender relations and household structures and is working on the development of an internationally comparative research project on “Family, Household Structures, Ethnicity & Health.”

Professor Le Franc says that her concern for the children of the Caribbean deepened in the 1980’s when in conducting research for UNICEF Jamaica, she would go into the inner city areas of Kingston and “see the wretchedness there.”

Pointing to the social problems now prevalent across the region including teenage pregnancies, increasing levels of violence and crime and HIV/AIDS, Professor Le Franc said, “I have felt that many of the countries in the region were sitting on a powder keg.”

She said that “the situation of children, adolescents, and young adults and the associated challenges are neither easily nor quickly analyzed nor understood” and called on young researchers to take up the gauntlet.

Professor Le Franc expressed gratitude for the UNICEF award recognizing the efforts of Professor Grantham-McGregor and herself but noted “the field of child development continues to be wide open and desperately in need of more work––especially by the social scientist…”

“Much remains to be done and solutions desperately need to be found,” she declared.