Early Childhood Development centres equipped with mother tongue books

Thu, 26 March 2009

“I do not doubt that this donation will have a positive impact in the children’s education (and) future careers. Your partnership with us is appreciated so much and looking forward to help more children to be acceptable citizens of our country.” – Mr Petros Myeza, Project Director of Ikhulubone Trust Early Childhood Development Training Provider.

REPORT 1: Biblionef equipping ten under-resourced Early Learning Centres

Biblionef is a book donation agency specialising in providing new books to children and adolescents where they have no access to a library or relevant reading materials. Biblionef is unique in that it donates books in all eleven of South Africa's languages. This project will provide underprivileged children and adolescents with new children’s books, stimulating their curiosity and desire to learn and laying a solid foundation of knowledge for their future.

Impact

• 923 children benefited from 1 000 books donated to 10 under-resourced Early Childhood Development centres across the country.
• Books were donated in eight of the eleven official languages, facilitating the mother tongue learning process, which impacts positively on the children’s ability to grasp concepts.
• Over the next three years, an additional 3 700 children will benefit from the donated books.

Activities

• Ten Early Childhood Development training centres were identified.
• Ten steel trunks, keys and locks were hired for the delivery of the donated books.
• 100 books were bought for each centre.
• A4 labels and posters were created for each centre.
• 11 educational toys (puzzles, threading, same and different cards, etc.) were bought for each centre.
• 12 posters (colours, numbers, shapes, etc.) were bought for each centre.

Expenditure

The cost of the project was R70,360, which is fully paid.

Description	Total Budget	Total Expenses to date
Order steel trunks	5 000	5 000
Buy keys and locks	300	300
Select and buy appropriate books	25 000	50 000
Print A4 labels and A3 poster	300	300
Buy appropriate resource materials	10 000	10 000
Arrange for dispatch with couriers	3 000	2 946
Interim report to GGSA	26 760	1 760
Total	70 360	70 306

Challenges

• Extra costs were incurred from telephone calls and postage to remind beneficiaries and Early Childhood Development training providers of their obligations towards Biblionef.
• An Early Childhood Development site, Ilitha Crèche – affiliated to Operation Upgrade – did not turn up to a meeting arranged by Biblionef to receive their steel trunk. On liaising with the principal, it was found that he or she confused the date of the handover. However, Hilary Dunn, the director of the Operation Upgrade Training Centre, had agreed to visit Ilitha Creche personally to hand over the steel trunk to them. The books have since been delivered.

Monitoring and evaluation

• The reports received from the Early Childhood Development centres form the most important part of monitoring and evaluating, as they indicate what benefits the books have given the children.

• The reports that have been submitted show the following:

• Practitioners and children were excited to see the new educational resources.

• The children loved the big pictures and bright colours of the books.
• Since the books were given in the mother tongue and depicted rural living, the children could easily relate to the stories, as they are from a similar environment.
• The educational resources were displayed to parents and they were informed of their importance,

Conclusions

The importance of stimulating an interest in books at an early age cannot be underestimated. Early Childhood Development centres play a critical role in preparing children for school, and it is at this level that books should be introduced to children.

The Early Childhood Development sites that have received the donated books now have the basic resources to implement a balanced daily educational programme. The Early Childhood Development training providers will build the capacity of the practitioners by ensuring that they attend training and workshops pertaining to the holistic development of the child. The practitioners will, through parent meetings, encourage parents to read to their children.

Having access to storybooks in their own language allows the children to discover worlds of imagination and fantasy, which they have sometimes been deprived of. It helps them to develop coping strategies, while reinforcing the importance of their own language.