Stories of change – when communities drive their own early childhood systems to success

From 2015-2017, Firelight provided support to community-based organizations across Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania to explore, build and sustain community-based approaches to early childhood development and care, in ECD centers, in homes and the community at large.

23 CBOs were supported and their work included support almost 50,000 children, parents, caregivers and community members and 77 ECD centers across the three countries.

To read more about the full learnings and impact from this work, please click here but in the meantime, please enjoy these inspirational stories from the people who experienced the change directly.

Active but behind: a tale of a worried mother

A story of change by a mother in Zambia

At 3 years, Chifundo (not real name) was playful and active but behind a normal 3-year-old child. He played a lot outside the house but could not communicate in simple short sentences. He was not even answering when told to stop doing anything. We couldn’t understand him because his talk was very unclear and could not identify any letters of the alphabet and numbers. His fine motor skills were very poor. He could not hold a pencil or any other small object properly. Because he could not hold crayons properly his colouring activities were not good. As a mother, I was worried but did not know what to do. One day while at the Bwafano Integrated Services Organization (BISO) clinic, I participated in a meeting that would change Chifundo’s developmental milestones forever. Together with other mothers, we were sensitized on the importance of taking a child at Chifundo’s age to an Early Child Development (ECD) center.

I decided to enrol him at the BISO ECD center because I was already benefiting from health programs offered by BISO. I immediately enrolled him but the first few weeks he did not like it he would cry when we left him at school. Over time he started loving being at the ECD. In fact, he loved it so much that even on weekends he would ask me to take him to the ECD center. At the ECD center, he learns and plays with other children, colors and he is even fed at the center because they provide food there. In a short time, Chifundo changed drastically. He answers and stops when asked to stop doing something. He has gained weight and he is able to act his age, “you can just tell that there is change”. He is even able to write and colour within the object and he is aware that he should not colour outside the object. He is 4 years now and I am so happy with how he has turned out to be. Even his father is so happy. He is far better than his elder brother who is 7 years and in grade one. Sometimes Chifundo knows how to do certain things better than his brother, maybe because he never passed through preschool like Chifundo.

These changes are very important to me as a mother. This is why I decided to tell this story. The changes are as important to me as he will be someone who is well educated and is guaranteed a good future. I feel he will take care of me. All these are because of the hard work of the teachers at the ECD center who are helping our children. Also, the help that BISO is giving us on how to play and praise children are also contributing factors to the changes that I have seen in Chifundo.

Improving ECD enrollment and attendance through poverty reduction using a community led agriculture empowerment program in Malawi

 A story of change by chair lady of the Pilitui ECD Management Committee in Malawi

Located about 300 km away from Lilongwe the capital city of Malawi, Pilitui is a small poor village with high childhood malnutrition in Balaka District in the south east of the country. As part of a solution to break generational poverty, Chinansi Foundation with the support of the community, established an Early Child Development (ECD) center in Pilitui. However, due to poverty, enrolment and attendance at the ECD center was low. Children were often hungry and malnourished leading to low enrolment and attendance. Attendance ranged between 20-25 children a day. Children were often reported sick due to malnutrition.

The ECD Center Management Committee (CMC), pressed by the need to improve nutrition and attendance, approached Chinansi for help. The need to improve malnutrition lead Chinansi to start a seed and farming initiative to help communities fight ECD malnutrition. The CMC acquired a one-acre piece of land and Chinansi supplied seeds of soya bean, maize (corn), groundnuts and bags of fertilizer. The CMC also obtained capacity from Ministry of Agriculture through Chinansi on how to prepare land, process and add value to their agriculture products.

Very soon after, CMC started feeding children at the center. A nutritious porridge made of maize powder, roasted soybean powder and groundnuts is prepared for the children every day. At 10 o’clock children are given a sweet potato snack and milk made from soya beans. Nshima (a hard porridge) taken with relish is also given to children.

As a result of the feeding program, children have become cognitively and physically stimulated. Children are happy and actively interact with their peers. The number of children attending the center increased in the first few months to 85, and absenteeism due to illness and hunger reduced significantly. The numbers by end of the year jumped to over 100 children at the center. Households also adopted the approach and started growing soya beans and groundnuts to prepare nutritious meals for their children.

The change is important to me because of the number of children at the center and what families have learned and are doing about food security. Community participation has been key to making this change possible and the coordination of Chinansi and its cooperating partners made this change possible.

Bouncing back on a healthy developmental trajectory: HIV exposed but thriving

A story of change by a mother in Zambia

For a long time Lusekelo (not real name) was very ill and I did not know what her health problem was - narrates her mother. Because of her health she never used to play with others. She always wanted to be with me.  Her weight was not corresponding to her age, she was frail and her skin tone and appearance was not good. One day I decided to take her to the clinic because her health had deteriorated, her body temperature was very high on that day and she had body rushes everywhere on her body. A series of tests at 9 months revealed she was exposed to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) at birth and it was not diagnosed early because of child missed the birth and six months early infant diagnosis of HIV. Her HIV exposure also affected nutritional status. The clinic immediately initiated her on treatment and on a nutrition intervention.  Every Wednesday in the nutrition program with other caregivers we were taught how to prepare meals and take care of the children.  The clinic also enrolled her for physiotherapy to make her active and strong. When she became strong, we were encouraged by Bwafano Integrated Services Organization (BISO) to enrol her in their ECD center. So, when she was 4 years, strong and active she was enrolled at the ECD center after undergoing the treatment.

I started preparing food that I was taught in the nutrition program. Before long I noticed her appetite increased and I could gradually see her change. Her body started to flourish and the body rush disappeared. She became active and was playing with her friends unlike before her treatment when she would be clinging on to me every time. She now mixes with friends and she is a happy child. At the time she was discharged, the test showed that she was negative despite being breastfed because of the treatment she was receiving at the BISO clinic.

The change I am seeing in my child makes me so happy and I am happy to share this story because the way she was growing used to worry me a lot. But because of the work of Bwafwano, she is healthy and the work Bwafwano has done makes me thankful. I have learned that nutrition is very important to a child.

If I look at what we went through I can attribute this change to the interventions BISO helped us with. Particularly the nutrition lesson I was getting every Wednesday made a big difference. BISO did not segregate me and the care and treatment that BISO support us with were very significant to the change we are seeing in Lusekelo today. The ECD enrolment also made the change I observed. She becomes active and explorative.

Kirima Juu Primary School in Tanzania shines in academic achievement and infrastructure development Kibosho district

Observations of change from a mother of a former pupil

As with many primary schools in Kibosho district, Kirima Juu primary school faced a lot of academic challenges in that children were far behind the grade ability in reading, writing and numeracy. The average ratio of teacher to pupil was bad, at about 1:45. Moreover, in the lower primary grades, one teacher would also teach more than two grades. Therefore, transitioning to the next grade was a challenge for most children. In addition, there was little participation and cooperation of parents in school related activities.  Parents never used to show up in school meetings and were not involved in their children’s school work or payment of school lunches and other contributions.

During a community problem identification and priority setting participatory meeting, Women Against AIDS in Kilimanjaro (acronymed in Swahili as KIWAKKUKI) unsurfaced the challenges that Kirima Juu and other local schools such as Usagara primary school were going through. KIWAKKUKI then reached out – through the local government - to help the school and surrounding communities. In the year 2013, KIWAKKUKI began intervention to assist classes 3 and 4 to master the reading, writing and numeracy skills because these three were the foundation for competence in other subjects. And then in 2014, as part of the solution, KIWAKKUKI expanded the intervention to holistically improve learning outcomes for young children.

Sensitization about the intervention was done for the school teachers, then stakeholders, followed by formation of learning clubs in 5 schools of Kibosho including Kirima Juu. Teachers were trained to conduct after school programs. A little later - due to information coming out about the teachers’ workload - the model was changed to have out of school youths with good grades managing the after-school learning clubs. The out of school youths were equipped with standard skills to master literacy and numeracy for young children and became para teachers.

KIWAKKUKI applied a concurrent program to involve parents in the learning process of their young children at home using the International Child Development Program (ICDP) Approach. ICDP is an approach which believes the best way to help children is through parents’ involvement in children’s learning process. First KIWAKKUKI trained Community Volunteers. These Community Volunteers then empowered parents/caregivers through home visits, sensitising them on importance of their involvement in their children’s school activities.  Parent-child communication was also at the center of this intervention so parents were encouraged and supported to set aside some time to help with homework for their children. Health and nutritional programs were also integrated. Teachers were also trained in ICDP.

As early as a few months after the intervention was begun, immediate outcomes were being observed. First parents’ interest in children’s work improved and their homework support activities improved. Over the course of the intervention, children’s performance improved in reading, writing and numeracy. The children’s achievement in learning reached a commendable level such that the school was even awarded a certificate of the “most improved school” by the Ministry of Education both at ward and district level.

The changes have impressed everyone in the community as narrated by Margaret, a parent who had a child at Kirima Juu Primary school.

“These changes made me happy. My son would have not transitioning to a secondary school. He was one of the first cohort that benefited from this intervention and completed his standard 7 in 2017. He is more responsive but before he was not regularly attending classes. After the intervention class attendance improved together with his performance. Today he is in boarding school that makes me really happy. This is a big change for the schools and also for our community.

“To me, all these changes would have not happened had it not been for the collaboration that parents, teachers and KIWAKKUKI. Children, parents and teachers all feel supported. Parents appreciate the importance of creating time for a child to do his or her homework. Teacher-pupil relationship have improved because teachers no longer intimidate learners but create a good learning environment unlike before where they would punish with canning sticks. The relationship between the teachers and parents has also improved and it is all because of this intervention. This has been an interactive and collaborative intervention that has yielded results for everyone.”

The impact of an ECD Centre in Tanzania: beyond child development outcomes

A story of change by a happy mother and ECD advocate in Tanzania

“I used to spend much of the time at home taking care of my child because he had nothing to do,” Rhoda (not real name) a mother of a child attending the Early Childhood Development (ECD) centre supported by Umoja Social Sustainable Development (USSD) narrated.

As a mother, it was difficult for Rhoda to do anything but take care of the child. She could not go and do any economic activities since she was staying with the child all the time. Leaving the child behind would have meant leaving the child with an older sibling. However, whenever possible the child accompanied the mother to the farm where the child would be playing alone or imitating the mother. Apart from being prevented from actively taking part in economic activities, Rhoda was also worried about safety of the child if left alone with siblings. “I was worried that if I left my child at home, my child might get into danger, like fall into a pit.” Leaving the child to be cared for by older siblings would have meant that it was difficult to engage in the deliberate play that is important to a child.

But one day, Rhoda received interesting information that an ECD centre would be opened by USSD in her community. “Many times, the local clinic would sensitize the community on the need to register our children with our local ECD centre but I was convinced to register for the programme after the announcement that was provided by our local government,” she said. Before the opening of the USSD ECD centre, children were meeting at a local church and it was far from home. So, Rhoda registered her child with the ECD centre USSD had just constructed.  When her child first started attending the centre, she had more time to engage her farming activities and was more productive in her activities because of the time she had to herself. Before long, she also started seeing that her child was able to write, name letters, identify shapes and objects and was also able to differentiate colors. Her child would be talking about playing corners which got  her curious and so Rhoda visited the centre one day. The caregiver at the centre explained about all the different corners - the story corner, shopping corner, playing corner - and so forth and she appreciated the value of these corners to the learning process. “When I see the changes in my child, they make me happy. There is a big difference when I compare the children at the ECD centre and those who have not been to the centre” Rhoda reflected. “Children who have been to the centre are more engaged, they ask a lot of questions which means that they are learning a lot more things compared to others. My child is very inquisitive and interactive compared to the brothers who are in standard 5 and 6, because for them even when you ask them questions, they hesitate to answer because they missed the early learning part and that is where I see a huge difference” said a very happy Rhoda. She also observed that because the child is stimulated, when sent, he brings exactly what he was requested to bring unlike other children.

Even as a parent, Rhoda says she has changed in that she sees more value in ECD, especially the smooth transition of children to Standard 1. She also feels more confident about playing with her children. Having learned the importance of playful parenting through her interactions with USSD, she also felt that there was value in playing with other children, learning together with other children and interacting. Rhoda reflected that before interacting with the USSD centre, she only engaged in playful parenting with her children for an hour or less each week.

As a result, she now advocates for ECD among other parents in her community. “The construction of an ECD centre is an important story to share because of the joy and changes it has brought not only to me, but the community as a whole” said Rhoda. “The initiative by Umoja (meaning USSD) is an eye opener and Umoja (meaning USSD) should continue with such initiatives. Umoja (meaning USSD) was able to bring together the community and make this change possible”.