Impactful EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT initiatives
“A child miseducated is a child lost.”
John F. Kennedy
The government defines Early Childhood Development (ECD) as a comprehensive approach to programmes and policies for children from birth to seven years of age. Its purpose is to protect the rights of children to develop their full cognitive, emotional, social and physical potential. The Harvard University Center on the Developing Child asserts that healthy development in the early years (particularly birth to three) provides the building blocks for educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, lifelong health, strong communities, and successful parenting of the next generation.
The United Nations International Children’s Education Fund (Unicef) theorises that science shows that life is a story for which the beginning sets the tone. That makes the early years of childhood a time of great opportunity, but also great risk.
Children’s brains are built, moment by moment, as they interact with their environments. In the first few years of life, more than one million neural connections are formed each second – a pace never repeated again. The quality of a child’s early experiences makes a critical difference as their brains develop, providing either strong or weak foundations for learning, health and behaviour throughout life.
Unicef continues by avowing that early childhood offers a critical window of opportunity to shape the trajectory of a child’s holistic development and build a foundation for their future. For children to achieve their full potential, as is their human right, they need health care and nutrition, protection from harm and a sense of security, opportunities for early learning, and responsive caregiving – like talking, singing and playing – with parents and caregivers who love them. All of this is needed to nourish developing brains and fuel growing bodies.
“Education is the most powerful weapon
which you can use to change the world.”
Nelson Mandela
It is this very reason why the House Mazibuko Foundation found it necessary to include Early Childhood Development initiatives, and not just any initiatives but impactful early childhood development initiatives as part of our strategic objectives. We realise that is important for societies to raise adults that won’t have to heal/recover from their childhood experiences and with children being the promise of the future, we must ensure we prepare them adequately by creating an environment conducive to learning and education programmes that stimulate their cognitive growth. This then becomes the primary objective when visiting any ECD Centre that we support. When we select an ECD to support, we conduct a checklist to check what nutritional and dietary programmes does the ECD provides to the children under their care, whether the curriculum meets the required standards as set out by the relevant authorities, the facilities are adequate and safe for conducting education for the development of young minds, whether the ECD is registered with Social Development and meeting all regulatory requirements in that regard.
Evergreen Academy
The House Mazibuko Foundation has selected Evergreen Early Childhood Development Academy in Cosmo City to help the centre become fully compliant in order to provide an environment conducive for learning, stimulation and development. We were very impressed with this centre as well as its visionary founder and principal Ms Memory Maphosa. She has set out with limited resources to provide a centre of excellence and created facilities that meet the basic requirements to create a learning environment. The five things the principal listed as needs for her school were – 1. Additional toilet facilities that need to be built for her 48 learners. 2. Get her educators to be ECD compliant from a minimum qualification standpoint. 3 Repair the play area. 4. Provide learning materials like books. 5. Plant a vegetable garden.
We have since provided so far in a space of a month 4 out of the 5 needs. We have planted the vegetable garden, partnered with the DBE literacy ambassador for the ECDs Mr Thomas Benjamin to provide training for the teachers to be qualified and have painted the jungle gym and repaired their play area. We have additionally set out to help Memory with her financials to be compliant as an NPO to provide financial statements as well as help her centre become viable by providing services of chartered accountants, advise on strategy from our founder who holds an MBA in Strategic Management and help with their digital requirements to maintain an online presence from qualified developers. We will need help from everyone to raise funds in building additional toilet facilities for them. This ECD has become the standard with which we will be helping all ECDs we come into contact with in providing help in becoming viable, sustainable centres of excellence.