THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT

South Africa has a population of 5.1 million children below the age of five years. Only 43% have access to Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres.

Most are housed in unhygienic shacks that get damp and very cold. This compromises brain development and sets children up for a difficult future. By changing their environment at the earliest stage of their lives, this tragic outcome can be avoided.

We are financing and building new safe, clean and warm ECDC centres for children between the ages of 1 and 6.
We provide nutritious meals, WASH education, educational tools and teacher training as part of the programme as well as mentoring and evaluation.

“Every one of our ECDCs are a new sustainable business, run and owned by the teachers.  To date, we have built 25 ECDCs, creating 25 new businesses, supporting over 160 full time staff, providing food and education to over 2355 children and allowing around 500 women to regularly seek work or maintain jobs knowing their children are in the best conditions.”
– Stefan Allesch-Taylor CBE, Founder & Chairman

We maintain no financial interest. Every ECDC head teacher signs a formal Code of Conduct Agreement which sets out the standards all parties agree to maintain for the children.

“Today we build brand new ECDC’s using simple but effective construction materials and create clean and safe environments for the children, we provide teacher training courses to improve staff skill sets, every child receives a nutritious free breakfast, we provide entrepreneurial support for the teachers when we hand over ownership of the ECDC’s on a perpetual licence upon completion. In addition we provide every child with a fun durable tracksuit ‘school uniform’ and additional educational aids – we have come a very, very long way from just serving free school breakfasts.”

Read our Chairman speaking about our New Nursery Building Program here.
Read about the launch of our Mhani Gingi Teacher Training Program.
Read about the Launch of The Afri-CAN Charity Nursery Building Programme.