"A person's a person, no matter how small!"

Across the globe, investing in the earliest years of a child’s development has been proven to improve future learning outcomes and keep children in school longer. Early Childhood Education (ECE) supports cognitive and socio-emotional developments during early childhood, where the brain matures faster than any other time in life. It also helps promote equity at a time where huge vocabulary gaps emerge between the ages of 3-6. An additional dollar invested in quality early childhood programs has a return of between $6 and $17. At the same time, investment in this area is minimal across developing countries – shockingly, only 2 percent of the education budget in Sub-Saharan Africa goes towards ECE.

That is reason we launched our first ECE class in 2019, facilitating pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills that are learned through play and activities. This program has had unprecedented demand – over 200 parents registered for only 50 slots at the initial pilot school. While we had planned to expand this program in 2020, it was delayed until this year due to COVID-19 school closures. We are excited to report that ECE classes started at seven schools in Katete District this year!

The children are divided into two classes based on age: Middle Class (aged 3-4) and Reception Class (aged 5-6). There are a maximum of 25 learners in each class in order for the teachers to be able to manage the classes appropriately and provide support to each individual child. Our play-based approach in ECE offers many opportunities for exploration and manipulation across a number of domains including cognitive, physical and socio-emotional. Some of the lessons the students have covered so far this year are pre-math skills like looking at numbers 1 to 10, matching shapes and becoming familiar with the letters of the alphabet. The classroom is a child-friendly space, and takes place both indoors and outdoors. Our staff event got involved, spending time making dolls for use in the classroom and during circle time.

A huge thank you to the Addax and Oryx Foundation and Comundo for supporting this project! We are excited to see these little learners in school and their smiles bring joy to our staff every day.

On a personal note, I visited our first ECE class in 2019 and was floored – it was one of the most engaging, creative lessons I had seen in Zambia! I’m thrilled that this program continues to expand and bring a quality education to our youngest citizens. Especially this week, as we celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday, I’m reminded of his quote: “A person's a person, no matter how small!”