A new approach to helping young kids
By Emily Churchman
We finally got tired of saying no. We got tired of people
walking long distances to come to us, and then laying out the harsh
circumstances of their lives that rendered them unable to send their young
children to school. Tired of the procession of widows, grandmothers, teenage
mothers, and concerned uncles arriving because children in their care were
nearing the age to start primary school but had not had any education
whatsoever. Usually these adults had other, even younger children to care for
and saw the cost for nursery school as insurmountable.
Or so they claimed. Running an organization like ours that provides free
services to people in serious need, you encounter plenty of people willing to
exaggerate their situation in order to get in on the goods. So we were equally
practiced in saying "really?". But we knew that at least some of the people who
came to us were accurately reporting their plights and that was a hard fact to
consider.
Our programs to date have centered on our temporary residential program, where
we accept young children who are at risk of going to the street. These children
are being brought up in circumstances that make it unlikely that they will
receive full primary schooling, and often are unsupervised for long hours of the
day. Some of their parents or guardians are alcoholics, others are commercial
sex workers, others simply have work that requires them to be away from home
from before dawn until after dusk. We are caring for children who at their homes
don't know if and when they will eat and who don't have people to teach them
right and wrong.
Because our funds and our facilities are small, and the number of people who are
in need is large, we have limiting terms on the children we will give help to.
But we found it disheartening that we were not able to help children that were
desperately poor but who did not need residential care.
So we decided to start something new; a free day care program for children in
need in the Unga, Ltd. neighborhood. As always, we carefully scrutinize the
caregivers who approach us by conducting multiple scheduled and unscheduled home
visits. The kids will come in the morning, will have porridge and lunch in the
afternoon, and will return home in the late afternoon for dinner and bed. The
school will offer, per usual, lessons in alphabet, Swahili, and English, as well
as time for free play. It will instill a sense of structure and discipline and
will reduce the amount of time that the children spend without adult
supervision. Most importantly, it will make the kids ready and enthusiastic to
start first grade, so even if they encounter barriers to learning in their
government primary schools, they will persevere. Programs like Head Start in
America have already demonstrated that the quality of preschool education that
children receive is highly influential on their later success in school.
We like this plan because it is cost-effective and a necessary service. We like
it because it is a natural extension of the work we are already doing. We like
it because it allows us to build on lessons we have learned and extend our reach
to new groups of children in need. Most of all we like it because it means that
when confronted with families who genuinely need our help, we no longer need to
say no.
For more information about LOHADA's activities, visit
www.lohada.org
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