Current Projects

Inclusive Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centres

Funded by Anglo American Chairman's fund

IEWC has received funding form the Anglo American Chairman's fund to begin work on an ECD Programme which comprises two main projects.

One programme will identify and strengthen Inclusive ECD Centres - that is centres willing to include young children with disabilities or other special needs. IEWC will be supporting and training the staff over an 18 month period as well as paving the way at neighbouring primary schools for inclusion of these children when they are ready to move into primary school.

The second project will identify under-resourced ECD Centres where there are particularly vulnerable children who run the risk of not being able to manage with the demands of formal schooling the following year. The Centre will be supplied with supplementary material and training in order to help them to bridge this gap with those children.

* We are looking for ECD Centres in the Western Cape who would like to be considered as participants in this project. Please contact Robyn at the IEWC office to find out more 021-674-1422.

 

Capricorn / Lavender Hill Toy Library Project

Funded by the Nussbaum Foundation

IEWC has received funding from the Nussbaum Foundation to open two toy libraries in the Lavender Hill / Capricorn communities. The first will be a toy library housed at a local ECD Centre that will be accessed by surrounding ECD Centres for use in their centres. Over 21 ECD Centres sent delegates on training to learn about how to use toys effectively in child development, the role of play in development and how to correctly identify barriers to learning that children in their centres may be experiencing.

Following on from the awareness and advocacy project IEWC undertook in the Lavender Hill/ Capricorn are in 2009/2010 a number of children with special learning needs and disabilities were identified. The large majority of these children were not accessing any form of education. Most children are on waiting lists for local special schools but we felt there was a real need to support their parents to stimulate their children and ensure their development whilst at home. Hence the need for an adapted toy library in the area which parents can access to borrow toys that have been specifically adapted for use by children with a wide range of disabilities and barriers to learning. This is the second toy library we are establishing in this community and will be housed at the Living Hope Centre. We are currently training parents on the role play in development, play at home and child development before the toy library is opened in February 2011.

Two practitioners from each toy library site will be sent on comprehensive training, offered by ALL-SA (Active Learning and leisure Libraries South Africa) where they will be shown how to prepare and catalogue toys and how to administer a toy library. The toys are in the process of being sourced and the toy libraries will open in February 2011.

 

Inclusive Schools Project

Funded by the Momentum Fund (First Rand Foundation)

This project has been developed in line with our growing belief that any efforts to encourage and support more inclusive practices will be more successful if whole schools, and to a certain extent whole school communities, can be involved. The Momentum Fund's support for this project reflects their interest in capturing examples of inclusive or "full-service" school practice as a viable alternative that can serve the interests of children affected by disabilities. In this way, it can be seen as a pilot project that can inform future school practices.

This project is being carried out over a three year period with four participating schools, 2 rural and 2 urban. They are: Claremont Primary, Fairview Primary, Swartberg Primary - Caledon and Jurie Hays - Vredenburg.