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The Early Childhood Development Centers

Having started at Katutandike a sister organization of Kulika Uganda, we continue to support the ECD project with our primary focus on the vulnerable children in urban markets. Due to the adverse poverty in these communities, children do not enjoy full rights especially in their early years of growth. Most of these children belong to single mothers who are market vendors with very low household incomes. They are unable to afford proper child care both at home and while at work. The mothers normally do their market vending with children in very confined and unhygienic spaces. There are no choices.In order to transform the lives of these children and ensure that they are not deprived of the love, care, nurturing, health, nutrition and protection that they need to survive, grow and develop, Kulika Uganda continues interventions which targeted the family as the immediate space that has the power to change the situation of that child.

What We Do

We believe that Poverty is not just about money. Our work on the ground has proved that what keeps people from realizing their full potential is lack of choice and opportunity. They seek dignity instead of dependency.

In order to ensure that the families of these children have meaningful and sustainable social and economic change, we have embarked on the development of social enterprises as a new paradigm for our charity interventions. This new strategy is aimed at economically empowering and transferring ownership directly to beneficiaries whilst providing a source of income for us to scale up work at the grassroots.

 

Our Approach

Our strategy mobilizes the mothers into support groups and provide them with information and training on selected topics such as child growth and development, positive parenting, child protection, nutrition and children’s rights to empower them become key pillars of change in the early childhood stages of their children.

 

Conducting trainings in income generating activities so that the parents are able to generate alternate sources of income through training in organic agriculture.

We work in partnership with existing day care centers close to selected urban markets to accommodate children while the mothers are working in the market and provide a conducive environment for learning, play and psycho-social development.

 

Kulika Uganda manages 3 active ECD market centers on behalf of one of its sister organisations, KaTutandike Trust UK each with a capacity of accommodating an average of 21 children as of 2019. These include Ggaba ECD, Nateete ECD and Mulago which is the latest edition. In addition to providing a safe play and learning environment for children in their early years. Kulika Uganda provides support to the care givers in these respective markets by hiring an ECD trainer whose role is to ensure that all the ECD centres adhere to a strict highly nutritional diet, monitor the child growth progress of all admitted children as well as incorporate a livelihood component against these duties. As a result parents and caregivers have been equipped with skills such as liquid soap making, candle making and exercise book processing to enable them develop alternative sources of income. There has been an increase in formal education enrolment of market vendors’ children into formal education structures especially those surrounding the markets. Bursaries too have been setup by well-wishers and the market leadership targeting these children hoping to reduce on the burden of school fees given their parents’ financial challenges. We conduct mappings of the children to have accurate numbers for those who have successfully transitioned into formal education structures.

 

Activities

  1. Visiting ECD centres to monitor childcare and handling by caregivers.
  2. Soliciting feedback from parents and caregivers on how best to improve the play and learning curriculum’s in order to fit the specific market environment and centre resources.
  3. Growth monitoring of children at the centre to ensure the ECD centre caregivers and administration is following the set balance diet requirement as issued during the care giver trainings.
  4. Conducting and supervising child learning assessment exams to determine the learning curve of each child with focus on ability to count, write, read as well as interaction with others.
  5. Following up on the performances of children who graduated from the ECD centres to join primary schools.
  6. Co-ordinating the office with the market vendor
  7. Ensure quality curriculum is used at the centre
  8. Training care givers on assessment (weighing, height, upper arm circumference)
  9. Nutrition analysis; whether children are feed with balance diets
  10. Monitoring and evaluating the assessment final test papers each end of term.

HIGHLIGHTS

The Town Clerk, Makindye Division offered the Ggaba ECD centre a space within the market as play ground for the children attending at the centre. The ECD project got a big boost from the market leadership in Mulago when we were offered space to set up our Mulago ECD centre within the market. The space contains a wooden structure that has the capacity of accommodating 25 children with a play area. There is space for expansion in case partners desire to construct a permanent structure. The market community are in a fundraising drive together with the ECD trainer to acquire funds to have the window, door glasses and damaged gates replaced.  The Ggaba market community especially the parents are already in the process of soliciting play facilities for the new play area in order to make more child friendly and engaging. Renovations (repair of the toilet and repair the gate) to the Ggaba ECD centre were funded by Stanbic Bank.

As the the centres gain popularity and support among the beneficiary communities we have come to realize the role the ECD centre plays in the development of the children. Schools within the communities have accepted to enroll the children form the centre into schools because they perform well. Mulago ECD is now fully functional since 2019. Looking for partners to support the infrastructure of Mulago Centre will continue through collaborations with other organizations.The planned meeting with the administrators of Katwe to enable the project start activities happened in December 2018. Follow up will be done in 2022