Early Childhood Development Initiative

In September Ba Futuru undertook its third training on early childhood education with 27 educators from the rural district of Lautem, bringing the total number of educators trained in the last year to 78. This training was undertaken in partnership with Child Fund and was supported by the Sunrise Joint Venture as well as donations from Global Giving.

The participants were educators from 5 different pre-schools in Lospalos, Lautem, parent-teacher-association-representative and relevant Child Fund staff. The 27 participants (20 females and 7 males) were enthusiastic to learn a new and more effective approach to education during the training.

A female preschool teacher said: “I am proud of this training. I learned different activities and strategies for teaching children. I especially found play-based learning to be a suitable method for working with children and I will try to implement this in my preschool in order to slowly transform the formal teaching style [that is currently used]. The fact that the training included a lot of practice helped me to transform my ideas and methods. Now I understand that teachers have to be flexible and creative in implementing the curriculum, and that we should use play based learning methods rather then formal teaching. I see that this strategy supports children’s development a lot.”

Traditionally in Timor-Leste, education is very formal and preschool classes are often run in the same way that high school classes might be run in other countries, where the children are sitting in their desks and the teachers are lecturing from the chalk board. Ba Futuru is working with educators to implement more effective play-based learning strategies that are age appropriate.    

In addition to the teacher training component, Ba Futuru’s Early Childhood Development Initiative (ECDI) has also been running its Early Childhood Education Facility with two classrooms servicing around 18 children aged between two to six years. This is used to benefit these children directly as well as to show teachers receiving training how they can implement new methods in action.

There are a handful of children attending the facility that are in need of scholarships so that their education can continue. Please think about donating monthly to help support these children’s education. You can also donate and print out a gift card for birthdays or as holiday gifts for your loved ones.

Thank you for your support!