Support Early Childhood Development Caregivers

Education Africa has been striking at the roots of South Africa's early learning crisis for three decades. Since formally registering Education africa in 1992, through our Early Childhood Development Project, we have trained 274 caregiversthrough our ECD Skills Development Programme and an additional 129 educators in our nationally accreded Train the Teacher programme and we are currently upskilling 5 interns to become ECD trainers through our Internship programme. 

Our ECD Train the Teacher programme was developed to assist caregivers in impoverished communities who are tasked with looking after preschool children. Our programme provides support and training to ECD practitioners and current or future potential caregivers to ensure children's school readiness as they progress from preschool to primary school. Our programme is designed to provide a hand-up rather than a handout. Our work at Education Africa, has enabled us to empower mostly Black women, and by empowering these caregivers, they have gone on to empower their communities. 

We recently completed the ECD Train the Teacher programme for our 2022/2023 cohort of students, and since then we have received good news from one of our students - Butikie. The preschool centre that he works at will be receiving an award as the "Best Preschool that provides Excellent Education under the Department of Education for all the Schools in the South of Johannessburg / D11".  This incredible achievement is encouraging to all at Education Africa, whose goal of Making real change Happen is realised through our students. 

Links:

• Read more about our ECD Project

The first quarter of the year was filled with exciting moments, from celebrating our Ntataise Championship to hosting comedian and Hollywood box office powerhouse, Kevin Hart alongside HE Dr Reuben E. Brigety II, Ambassador of the United States of America to the Republic of South Africa at our Social Cohesion event at Masibambane College. 

The second quarter saw us hunkering down to focus on the academic side of things, as the 2022/2023 cohort are reaching the end of their studies. Our students have shown their commitment to completing the programme and receiving their NQF level 4 qualification.  

The power of play should not be underestimated as it is essential to a child’s growth – cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally. We recently held our Introduction session of our Resource-making Workshop. Every ECD cohort is equipped with the knowledge and ability to make toys from waste material to better equip their learners. Our resource-making workshops are important once you consider the communities our ECD students serve, where poverty plays a key-role in one’s navigation of the world. The resource workshops create the opportunity for our students to make classroom resources that are integral to a child’s growth. While this resource-making knowledge will positively impact and holistically develop the children we reach through the Teach the Teacher programme; it will also help our students facilitate a daily programme in their school. We thought we’d share some of the resources made by our ECD Team.

Links:

• Learn More About our ECD Project