The state of the South African Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector has been left with a massive crisis post Covid-19. This sector is responsible for 8 million young children under the age of 5. It is estimated that +30,000 pre-schools serving poor communities in SA run the risk of closure as a result of the pandemic. Not only does this place thousands of jobs at risk, it leaves roughly 1.5 million young children without an ECD programme to attend in their already vulnerable communities
With job losses on the rise, impoverished families are unable to afford monthly pre-school fees. Without this monthly income, and no government funding, 30,000 early learning facilities (serving 1 million young children) are at risk of closing. Ongoing nutritional support to these facilities - where children often receive their only meal of the day - acts as an incentive for families to return their children to a stimulating environment AND will help these early learning facilities remain open.
Your donation is not just giving a young child the energy to learn every school day, you are encouraging their parents/caregivers to send them back to a stimulating environment and supporting passionate Early Childhood Development practitioners (mostly marginalized women) to keep their learning Centres running so they can continue to nurture and stimulate young minds. DO MORE porridge (provided at cost) enables you to provide nutritional support for $1 | 1 CAD | 1 Euro (R20) /month per child.
If we are to break the cycle of inter generational poverty we need to give young children a healthy and equitable start in life. Providing nutrition and an incentive for early learning for 20,000 of our countries most vulnerable young children will strengthen their development during the most fundamental years of human development (90% of brain growth occurs before the age of five); build their future health and economic prospects; and unlock the potential of future generations
