There are a huge number of ECD centres in rural communities that function in isolation. In general, they are started up by women who decide they can do something positive for the children in their area. They start with what they have which is usually a building that doesn’t meet minimum norms and standards to be registered as an ECD centre. Often, there is no running water or electricity and not much in the way of equipment, toys or teaching resources. All these women have in abundance is a love for children, energy and enthusiasm. These women are inspiring!
Impande actively finds these centres and works with them to link them to support. Identifying and collecting data on existing ECD centres has been ramped up significantly this quarter. We currently have 6 teams that are out in the field, driving far and wide in search of ECD centres.
Our Team on the Ground
We would like to introduce one of our team members doing this. For the last month, Nelisiwe Rabukana has been working with 2 of her colleagues finding new ECD sites in Ntabankulu in the Eastern Cape. They visited 17 wards and managed to find between 4 and 8 centres per day. She explains, “We link up to the various ECD Forums and connect with the Chairperson who then tells us where to start. The forums have their own whatsapp groups and then they tell all the ECDs in their group that we are around. At each ECD centre we visit, they give us directions to the next one. It’s quite fun not knowing exactly the route you are going to be travelling each day.When we get to an ECD centre, we do an assessment and enter information on our phones and record our observations about the site.”
When asked what the biggest challenge has been, Nelisiwe didn’t hesitate “The roads have been terrible. It gets exhausting driving on such bad roads. Lucky for me, one of my colleagues also drives so we share the load.”
When asked what’s happening next she explained “We are going to Matatiele next. There are 26 wards in Matatiele so it will take us about two months. We have organized accommodation there and we will go out every day, until we’ve done the whole area.”
