NAREA Mission
The 
North American Reggio Emilia Alliance is a network of educators, parents, and advocates seeking to elevate both the quality of life and the quality of schools and centers for young children. We envision a world where all children are honored and respected for their potential, capabilities, and humanity. Our mission is to build a diverse community of advocates and educators to promote and defend the rights of children, families, and teachers of all cultures through a collaboration of colleagues inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy.
About NAREA
The North American Reggio Emilia Alliance exists to connect early childhood educators and advocates together in discovering, interpreting, and promoting Reggio Emilia inspired education. NAREA believes in the inherent abilities and basic rights of children and adults, particularly with regard to their competence and right to actively construct relations, knowledge, feelings, and identity. NAREA works to mobilize educators, parents and policymakers to play a collective role in moving the value of early childhood education to a position of priority. Through conferences, networking, and resource sharing, NAREA is advancing an inspiring and innovative movement that is giving more quality and excellence to education.
Our Conviction is Childhood Matters
Children, from birth, are eager to learn and relate. They seek to examine, experience, and connect with the people and phenomena surrounding them. In education and in life, children and adults thrive when there are interesting resources, complex environments and experiences, time for the pleasure of learning and being, reciprocity, sharing, traces of interpreted experiences in process, a strong sense of belonging, and optimism for the future.
At NAREA, we base our efforts on the fundamental values and principles of the Reggio Emilia approach, and endeavor to offer unique experiences for deepening awareness and supporting ongoing connection among members. We believe, as did 
Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia municipal education project, that intelligent children deserve intelligent teachers, and through knowing children well, we can learn more about our roles as adults in children’s lives. We envision a world where all children are honored and respected for their potential, capabilities, and humanity.