Early Childhood Development

This friday started with another great lecture by Varkey George about emotional intelligence for social entrepreneurs. We learned how we can use emotional intelligence to be successful in our everyday life and at the workplace. He called our attention to the influence of emotions especially for the future. After that the groups went on with their work. Dr. Kathrin Bischoff supported the teams with her methodical expertise and answered questions.

Early Childhood Development

Saskia, Johanna, Melina and Lucie supporting the Early Childhood Development programme at Etafeni. It provides high quality and holistic education to almost 90 children between two and six years old. As it is targeting children affected by HIV/AIDS, it doesn’t only offer high quality education to build a path for brighter futures, it also provides overall care. The high quality education can be ensured due to small learning groups of 20-25 children per class. Etafeni provides well maintained and spacious class rooms and play areas outside that ensure a secure space for children to interact and develop. On top of that, the children get two nutritious meals per day to ensure that they eat healthy and to avoid malnutrition. To bring the children safely to school, Etafeni offers transportation to and from Etafeni. After school there is an after-school-care program including educational activities as well as singing songs and listening to stories. 

Since many parents can’t regularly afford the school fee of ZAR 100 a month for various reasons we are trying to find solutions that parents get engaged to the EDC program also in other ways like volunteering or donating. On top of that, we are planning to implement a partnership campaign where one can donate the school fees for one year and as a result can ensure that one child can take advantage of Etafeni’s ECD program.

Johanna: “For me it is really enhancing and motivating when I see the smiles on the kids’ faces when they are in their classes at Etafeni. They are so open minded and really willing to learn. I do hope that through our project work even more kids get the chance to get educated in a loving surrounding which Etafeni is.”

Phumeza: "As teachers we love our job and are very passionate about it. We meet the requirements for social development and provide the best quality of early childhood development. Parents want to bring their children to our premises due to our high quality, safety and security. Unfortunatly there are limits of the amount of children we can accept."