ECD Effects – 11/13 – 01/14

Monthly ECD Theme:

Following on from last month, we continued with the theme of School Readiness as the children will be starting grade 1 next year. Focusing on fine motor skills development and shape identification, our crèche owners have been preparing the learners for their 1st year at pre-primary.

Community Involvement:

Children enjoying their Christmas gifts

This month started off with a HUGE celebration for the ECD programme. Izimbali crèche, build from thin prefabs, was demolished, reconstructed and built for Primrose and her learners. Read more about the incredible story here.

As the year draws to a close, we welcome the exciting Christmas parties and goodie bag donations for the children on our ECD programme. A number of individuals and companies spent time celebrating with the children at a number of creches. Santa Shoebox donated a number of presents, filled with toiletries and toys, to 10 of our crèches. Each crèche held a Christmas party towards the end of the month with sweets, cool drinks and chips and handed out their Christmas shoeboxes filled with goodies. The children and teachers thoroughly enjoyed the day as they wound down from a productive year.

Last week, all 16 crèche owners on our Afrisun Bright Start ECD programme, met together at our Domino offices to reflect on the 2013 year and complete some required paperwork. As our ECD programme is a recognised Enterprise Development contributor on the B-BBEE scorecard, we are required to ensure that certain standards are met. Each crèche owner signed affidavits to confirm the training received during the year, as well as any physical work that was carried out at their crèche. We received some positive and encouraging feedback on our effectiveness in 2013 and are looking forward to continue building this relationship next year.

We ended off the month hosting a Christmas party for each of the crèche owners and teachers on our ECD programme. It was a fantastic networking opportunity and team building event, over some hot dogs, breyani and ice creams. The day started with some praise & worship, followed by some talks by the field workers and it ended with each teacher walking away with a gift bag of goodies to say ‘Thank You’ for a fantastic year.

This years ECD #DominoEffects are below. How incredible?

2013 ECD #DominoEffects

Read more of our November Domino Effects Newsletter here:
– Monthly General Overview
– Babies Effects
– Feeding Effects
– Life Skills Effects
– ECD Effects
– Literacy Effects

ECD Effects 10/13

Educator Training and Workshops:

This month marked the start of our follow-up training workshops for our Afrisun, Bright Start ECD centres. Our ECD field workers along with 9 crèche owners attended a 2 day workshop at ESS, where they continued to look at important financial requirements to running a small business. This included the importance of record keeping, cash flows and managing overhead running costs. The ladies thoroughly enjoyed the 2 day training time and left feeling more empowered and skilled to manage their growing business.

Our ECD field workers also attended a 3 day HIV/AIDS workshop run by UN Aid. Hosted at the Coastlands hotel, the course covered the basics of HIV/AIDS but focused on the use of anti-retroviral’s, the possible side effects and how to care for those children infected with HIV/AIDS. Our field workers found this time very beneficial as the community we work into is greatly affected by this pandemic.

Community Involvement:

On 18th October one of our crèches, Goodness from God, received a much needed makeover! A team from Magnet, working with one of our partners Angel Projects, got their hands dirty and scraped, sanded and painted the interior and exterior of the crèche. Rebuilding broken walls and replacing broken windows the team worked hard to uplift the ECD centre and to create a positive environment for learning. This highlights one of the important principles of the Resilience Theory (a social work theory), stating: The individual will be more likely to continue development along the lines of strengths, if emphasis is placed on realising positive capabilities within their environment. We believe that by transforming a negative learning environment to a positive environment or an environment more conducive to learning, then learning outcomes will be better achieved. We have seen this take place in our Life Skills schools, as teachers become more motivated to teach and learners achieve better results in their studies.

Monthly ECD Theme:

Each month we select a theme for the crèches to roll out and focus all learning activities around these themes. From having a themed table, hosting a number of educational and interactive toys revolving around the theme to having all stories tie in with the decided theme, we feel the educators cover all aspects of the monthly theme. This month the children at all crèches on the Afrisun Bright Start ECD programme were excited to start learning about School Readiness. As the children will be starting grade 1 next year, October and November have been set aside to start preparing the kids for grade 1. The field workers and crèche owners covered areas such as How to hold a pencil, how to count basic numbers, how to thread string/rope through various items and how to hold and cut with a pair of scissors. Having witnessed the lack of school readiness from previous grade 1 learners within Amaoti, we are confident that our learners are well prepared and we are very excited to see our 1st group of ECD learners head off into the ‘big pond’ that is primary school.

Mentoring a lesson with song and dance

Read more of our October Domino Effects Newsletter here:
– Babies Effects
– Feeding Effects: Durban North Kitchen
– Feeding Effects: Brookedale Kitchen
– Life Skills Effects
– ECD Effects
– Literacy Effects

ECD Effects 07/13

The past two months have seen crèche owners and teachers expand their knowledge and skills base through more training courses. These training courses are run by Unlimited Child, they promote Early Childhood Development (ECD) by providing educational toys and caregiver training to underprivileged crèches. Twenty-six crèche owners and teachers attended the one week training at a TAFTA hall in Amaoti. The training course was about how to use teaching resources correctly with different age groups and how to use these resources in a creative way.

Lessons in the creches have continued with the theme of healthy living and body parts.

DOMINO EFFECTS NEWSLETTER: JUNE/JULY 2013

Babies Effects

Feeding Effects

ECD Effects

Life Skills Effects

Literacy Effects