17 August 2016
Delft is a bustling township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. It is notorious for its high crime rate; substandard schools, lack of jobs, and numerous governments built housing projects.
Meet Doreen Dekoor, a vibrate community leader and ECD facilitator who runs the Young Eagles Nest Educare centre found in heart of the township. The centre, like many others in the community caters for children 0-4 years old, serving as drop in centres, with no or limited learning outcomes.
“I had no idea how to engage with the children, we haven’t worked according to a programme or lesson plan before… we didn’t know how to interact with the children effectively – everything was just about going with the flow”, Doreen says.
That has all changed- the Young Eagles Nest Educare Centre along with several other centres have been the recent beneficiaries of Inclusive Education South Africa’s (IESA), Early Childhood Development (ECD) Programme. The programme aims at building capacity of ECD centres through teacher-training to provide children with stimulating and quality learning and a welcoming environment for all children to learn and grow in order to create a strong foundation for their entry into formal schooling.
IESA’s ethos being all children are different and all children can learn, has better equipped community ECD centres accommodating all young children. Using practical strategies and materials have been recipes for success.
The programme which started in August 2015, concluded on Wednesday, 17 August 2016. “The kids love me and yell out ‘you the best’, my centre has improved weekly through the training, I am very happy”, Doreen says with a smile.
With Delft equipped with 12 newly inclusive centres, IESA will be monitoring these centres and providing ongoing support through our information and support service.
IESA is the only non-profit organisation in SA with the implementation of inclusive education as its primary objective, committed to promoting and supporting positive models of inclusive education in schools, pre-schools and other centres of learning in South Africa.