Support Early Childhood Development Caregivers

Dear Friend of Education Africa,

Hello and thank you for supporting our campaign. We are very grateful and will continue to work hard on our Education Africa Early Childhood Development Project with your help.

Due to COVID-19 pandemic and the national lockdown, all our training centres were mandatory closed by the South African Government and under a hard lockdown imposed movement has been extremely limited. This has meant that Education Africa’s ECD team has been unable to do in-person training with our students.

The lockdown further prevented the practical implementation course requirements at various ECD centres, as schools were closed, and students were not able to access and observe children for the purposes of their assignments for Module 1. The team at Education Africa being social entrepreneurs, have not sat back and given up; we very quickly embraced the lockdown as a time to innovate and to get on with what we do best “Making real change Happen”.

Our Education  Africa ECD Team decided that the course will take on the form of a blended teaching/training and learning approach with both digital training as well as the use of hard copies for all modules and written work recorded in exercise books. Hardcopies of the learning materials are provided to the students alongside food parcels, so they can learn and follow along with the trainers online teaching. This blended learning approach has been highly successful, and the trainers have completed teaching Module 2 and are preparing for Module 3!

The current landscape of Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres in South Africa includes a troublesome combination of undertrained caregivers and limited resources. According to a 2013 ECD Audit, only 10% of children living in Johannesburg between the ages of three and five are enrolled in ECD centres. Many caregivers, despite having years of practical experience, have poor reading, writing, and critical thinking skills -- impeding their ability to plan and manage effective early childhood programming. Without qualified caregivers, the majority of young children in Johannesburg have fallen through the cracks of our society’s care. Education Africa is equipped with the requisite specialised staff, structures and experience to tackle these issues and create meaningful change for South African children.

Be part of Making real change Happen by providing Poverty alleviation through Education.

James Urdang

CEO & Founder

Links:

• http://www.educationafrica.org