Inclusive Early Childhood Development and Learning Center-Nazaret, Tanzania

Project Background

Early Childhood Development is a period of rapid and critical development-from conception to 6 years. Quality nurturing care during this period-adequate nutrition, good health care, protection, play and early education-is vital for children’s physical, cognitive, linguistic and psychosocial development. UNICEF estimates that half of the pre-primary school-age children in the world today – that is, at least 175 million children are not enrolled in pre-primary education and care during these vital years, deepening inequalities and missing a critical investment opportunity. Tanzania takes early childhood education and care as a priority. Yet almost 8 million children eligible for inclusive early childhood development and learning (IECDL) remain out of reach. Nazaret –sub village located on the foothill of Mt Meru in the South West of Kilimanjaro International Airport in Arusha region also lack quality IECDL services.

Project Justification

Tanzania recognizes that investing in IECDL interventions has the potential to offer immense opportunity for all children, regardless of social-economic background, to develop the cognitive, social and emotional skills needed for their development, well-being and success in later life. However, in underserved rural communities such as Nazaret access to quality IECDL services are difficult to find. Estimative, about 98% of children in Samaria ward and in a radius of almost 80km are not accessing quality IECDL services due to extreme poverty and unavailability of IECDL services. Most parents and caregivers struggle to provide their children with nurturing care in the early years of lives. Many children demonstrate vivid signs of malnutrition such as wasting and stunting. FAE has to come to learn that if no intervention is undertaken these young children including those with SEND will continue to miss out on the crucial IECDL opportunity for their cognitive, social, emotional and physical growth and development. Also, inequalities and the cycle of poverty will continue as these children will most likely have poor outcomes in later life.

Action Taken

FAE has therefore built a permanent purpose-built fully IECDL center to serve over 200 children aged 3 to 7 years old including those with SEND. The center is now operational and highly supported by parents, religious leaders and the local government authority. The long term vision is to expand infrastructure and services in this center to benefit more children.

Expected Outcomes

The IECDL services are expected to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal # 4 calling for provision to all children with quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education by 2030. The more specific outcomes are:-

1. Improved academic performance in primary, secondary and higher level education. It is expected that the IECDL center will improve academic performance of the young children. It will help them learn faster the numeracy, literacy and even social skills. These skills will help students to pass and timely join the primary school education and smoothly move up the ladder. After primary school students can even move to secondary school education and even join university and eventually help their families and communities.

2. Reduce the chances of dropout and repetition. This project is expected to reduce the chances of drop out and repetition in primary and secondary school. The program will prepare more children to excel in education cycle and life.

3. Improved physical, emotional and social wellbeing. The IECDL services such as nutritious food, healthcare access, interactive play, emotional and social skills development will help to improve health and general wellbeing for the young children. They will become more active mentally, physically and socially with positive outcomes on their learning process. The play and games will benefit them by becoming fast learners of new skills such as numeracy and literacy.