Dlalanathi has received a grant to launch their partnership project entitled “Championing ECD at home: Advocating for home-based, parent-led ECD in SA communities.
Dlalanathi, the lead partner, together with 2 other KZN-based organisations, Thandanani Children’s Foundation and Singakwenza, have collaborated to bring together a suite of different, essential and complementary skills and expertise to design an integrated pilot programme, responsive to a critical gap, to provide support to parents and caregivers through home-based early learning and responsive care.
The grant was provided by The Nurturing Care Framework (NCF) for Early Childhood Development: A framework for helping children survive and thrive to transform health and human potential.
The NCF was co-developed by the World Bank, UNICEF and other partners to provide a road map for systematising the provision of ECD services to equalise development to build human capital.
The NCF draws on evidence generated over the past two decades to provide the formula to change the situation of young children to enable them to escape the intergenerational poverty trap, and in so doing, set the country back on course to achieve its inclusive, sustainable development goals. The formula is well-recognised and embedded in South Africa’s ECD policy which commits to the sustained provision of services in 5 key areas:
Whilst most young children in South Africa (70%) receive health services through a well-developed health system with a sound community- and home-based delivery footprint, only 30% receive responsive caregiving and early stimulation and learning (Ilifa Labantwana, ECD Review, 2019).
We at SAPPIN wish Dlalanathi well in this endeavour and applaud the work they are doing.