If children do not receive the correct stimulation between the age of 0 and 6, such as learning colours and shapes through educational toys, parts of their brain will wither and die. This process is irreversible. Not even the best teachers in the world can help these children. They are untrainable and destined for a life of poverty as they will never have the ability to learn a skill.
In South Africa this applies to over 6 million children – if they are to have a future, urgent intervention is needed.
The Unlimited Child directly promotes Early Childhood Development (ECD) by providing educational toys and caregiver training to underprivileged crèches. A Section 21 NPO based in Hillcrest, Durban, we aim to reach 1,25 million children throughout South Africa by 2016 but additional funding and replication of our model is required. Only then, can thousands more children enter school with ready minds and the capacity to reach their full potential.
Vision
Our vision is that ALL preschool children attending crèches in South Africa have access to relevant and stimulating activities provided by trained caregivers, which will help them achieve their potential. We achieve this by:
Supplying Educational Toys
- We provide educational toys that have been specifically designed to maximise cognitive and fine motor skill development in preschool children
- We have three kits. Each kit has been specifically developed for a different preschool age group:
- 5 to 6 years
- 3 to 4 years
- 18 to 36 months
- Our toys are supplied in sturdy, plastic boxes (kits)
- Toys include wooden blocks, games, dolls, cars, water and sand trays and books (our books are currently in Zulu but these will be supplied in other vernaculars as we roll-out to other provinces)
- Our crèche’s with Grade R’s (5 to 6 years) also get a copy of a Grade R Manual which has been written to help untrained teachers/parents. It’s a basic step-by-step guide on the content and structuring of a Grade R programme and gives advice on daily, weekly and termly planning.
Providing training for caregivers who work in the crèches
- Most of our caregivers have never had any formal training so our programme gives them everything they need to be effective teachers
- We show the caregivers how to stimulate children through direct, hands-on experiences with people, objects, events and ideas
- Our training consists of four full-day Saturday sessions over a 6-week period
- Theory is kept to a minimum. We explain why each toy has earned a place in the kit, but it’s through active play that the caregivers really learn how to use the toys. Some of our ladies have never made a jigsaw, so learning by doing has incredible results!
- Our caregivers are shown that one toy can be used to teach many concepts such as colour, counting, spatial awareness, etc.
- Our caregivers are introduced to a daily routine with a predictable sequence of events
Monitoring and evaluating our crèches
- When we’re looking at adding a crèche to our programme, we first evaluate it against a set of criteria to see if it will benefit
- The key factors in our evaluation is caregiver commitment to training, the potential for the crèche to become self-sufficient and the caregiver’s love for the children
- Most of our crèches are run by ladies who started a care facility as they are passionate about children. They are not in it for the money and this is just as well as many of them are paid less than R100 per month in total!
- When caregiver training has been completed and our kits have been supplied to the crèche, it is monitoredon a regular basis to:
- Assess that our equipment is used on a daily basis
- Check that our kits and toys are being looked after carefully and that there is somewhere secure to store them
- Provide encouragement and support to the caregivers
- Our monitoring visits are unannounced to make sure that no “window dressing” takes place. Generally the caregivers love to see us as they are really pleased that someone is taking an interest in what they are doing
- We collate the information from the monitoring sheets and use this information to identify trends, both positive and negative, so that we can keep on improving our model
Forming crèches into cluster groups
- Our crèches are formed into cluster groups or communities that act as support networks for each other, so that learning amongst our caregivers is continuous
- Our cluster system is based on crèches proximity to each other
- Clusters meet regularly (at least four times a year) and learning is shared through internal support and interaction
- Through this, our crèches become interdependent rather than dependent on the sponsor
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