Launching of a Church-Based Early Childhood Development Program in Nkhotakota and Karonga districts, Malawi
A program of Capital for Good - Sponsored by Oxford University Press
An ECD Class of 25 at Nkhono Anglican Church, Nkhotakota
This week, August 26-30, 2013 marks a very significant milestone in the history of Early Childhood Development programs in Malawi. This is because Capital for Good Malawi officially launched its ECD program in Karonga and Nkhotakota here in Malawi.
What is Early Childhood Development?
The Early Child Development (ECD) is a
comprehensive approach to programs for children from birth to eight years of
age that looks at their health,
nutrition, education and the general water and sanitation environment in their homes, communities and nursery/preschool centers.
Why is ECD Important?
The first few years of life of a child last forever. Child psychology research has shown that it is during the early years of life that the development of intelligence, affectivity and social relations occur very rapidly. In addition, any irregularity in a child’s development at this stage will substantially reduce future potential.
In Malawi, access to early learning
opportunities through ECD centers is currently at only 26.6%. The concentration of early
child development centers also known as nursery/kindergartner or preschools, is mainly in urban areas.
The majority of children in rural areas do not have access to these facilities as they do not exist at all. The resultant effect of this state of affairs include the following:
- Many children from rural backgrounds do not perform well enough in their primary school education as compared to their counterparts from the urban areas where preschools are almost a must before joining primary one. Consequently it becomes difficult for rural children to compete for national secondary school places let alone tertiary education
later in life.
- Many parents of children below age 5 in rural areas do not have time for self improvement ventures as they have to spend most of their time taking care of the children instead of engaging in income generation activities. This results in the perpetuation of poverty in the families which mostly affect women and children considering that most childbearing mothers spent most of their productive age giving birth and caring for children - sometimes up to 7 children in their lifetime. Unlike in urban areas where mothers with very young children take their under-five kids to daycare and preschools for half of the day which allows them to engage in gainful activities.
- Older siblings of children below age 5 especially girl siblings in rural areas are forced to miss school especially during farming season (October to April) in order to take care of their under 5 years old siblings so as to allow their parents to have the
opportunity to cultivate their garden plots that are vital for family
subsistence. Subsequently, most girl children completely drop out of school resulting in a disproportional ratio of boys to girls attending school in most rural communities today.
What is this 'Capital for Good' ECD Program all about?
This program is all about empowering and supporting community based grassroots churches in establishing and
managing Early Childhood Development Centers/preschools for foundation education and nutrition support of under-five years old children so that they are able to fulfill of their rights to fully develop physical, emotional, social, and
cognitive potential.
The unique design of this program brings together 8 community based churches within a locality into
a consortium for collective coordination of the ECD program among participating churches. Churches across the Christian spectrum and even those more along African
traditional beliefs are involved. Each Consortium is led by a steering
committee comprising elected representatives of the participating congregations. In a church
consortium with 8 churches, each church registers children of ages between three and five from within their respective catchments area and make their church building available as an ECD center or preschool for 5 days a week, 5 hours a day (7 am – 12 am). During these times the children were given a meal and foundation education that included alphabet and numeracy. Three volunteers per church are recruited and properly trained to serve as ECD caregiver or teachers. Apart from sponsoring the 13 day-long training, Capital for Good (CfG) with the financial support of Oxford University Press (OUP) furnishes each Center with materials and tools for nutritional and educational programs.
In this project, CfG has facilitated the establishment of 16 consortia of 8 grassroots churches per consortium representing a total of 128 Early Childhood Development centers or preschools. These are in the Malawi districts of Nkhotakota and Ntchisi in the Central Region and Karonga and Rumphi in Northern Region. As a result of this initiative about 384 volunteers who are mostly girls with a minimum of 8 years of formal educational qualification will undergo the full Government certified Caregivers training program. This will therefore lead to a total of 12,800 children from the rural communities of these 4 districts having been provided with foundation education and nutrition support by 2015. This is hugely significant in that the program will have raised the percentage of preschool attendance in these districts from the current 15 - 25 percent to about 60-70 percent. Naturally, this also implies that nearly the same number of parents as the children will have been empowered to engage in gainful income generating activities for the improvement of their lives and that of their families while the girl older siblings of these children will have been allowed to attend school without disruptions.
This week on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 August in Karonga and Thursday 29 and Friday 30 August in Nkhotakota, Capital for Good ECD program in Malawi organized and facilitated a two day long orientation training for a total of 144 church consortia leaders who represented the 128 ECD Centers. This training program was also marked the official launching of this program by government officials in both the two districts. Speaking at the launch in Nkhotakota on Friday 30 August, Mr. McKnight Kalanda who is the Director for Children Affairs in the Ministry of Gender, Children and Community Development, said "... my Ministry is extremely excited with the launch of this initiative as it marks a beginning of a new chapter in the history of Early Childhood Development program. This is also because, as a Ministry we have also been contemplating of starting to engage churches and this year's ECD WEEK theme is centered on ECD and the Faith Community..."
By Alfred Mwenifumbo
Country Director - Capital for Good Malawi
Consortia Leadership from Karonga during the Program Launching Day
