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Teaching the caregivers

The township of Kathlehong, just outside Johannesburg, appears an unlikely place to look for creative approaches to early childhood care. The landscape is dominated by small cinder block homes and shacks. In the early 1990s, this township was a war zone, the scene of deadly faction fighting between rival political groups vying for power. Just surviving was challenge enough for families and children in those days; development was a luxury. This was the urgent dilemma that confronted the Impilo Project when it arrived in 1998.

In Kathlehong and the neighbouring townships of Thokoza and Vosloorus, the Impilo Project has reached out to the numerous 'informal' services in shacks and hostels, offering training, resources and funding to upgrade facilities. "Services in informal settings do not qualify for legal recognition," says Sophia de Beer, the early childhood development officer for the province's Department of Education. Day-care providers routinely hid children from apartheid government inspectors, fearful that their crèches would be discovered and closed down. As a consequence, Impilo Project workers have to seek out the unregistered services - often finding them by sighting brightly coloured drawings in windows - and reassure them that the Government is there to help.

As part of its mission, the Impilo Project carries its philosophy of child-centred learning down a rutted dirt road where, at the end of a row, a gaily coloured metal shack has the words 'Teboho Child Care' (teboho means 'a gift') painted on the side. Some children run around the sandy lot, while others sit outside on a veranda working with measuring utensils. "I made this for the love of the kids," says Emily Serobe, 48, dressed in a brilliant red dress and blue scarf, as she motions to her small, neatly kept crèche. She and three other women look after 29 children up to age five. "The kids were running in the streets, and they were victims of child abuse. There was much fighting here in 1994. I saved the children by taking them inside."

Emily Serobe with a child at the Teboho Child Care creche in South Africa.

Ms. Serobe now receives an annual subsidy from GDE of R4,000 ($670). She has used it to expand her space and to buy art supplies, toys and teaching resources. The Impilo Project also provides Ms. Serobe with training in how to care for children. "I used to beat and yell at the kids if they didn't respond," she acknowledges candidly. "They were crying, making noise, and I didn't know what to do. Then I learned to talk to them quietly and not beat them." She motions to the youngsters who are absorbed in drawing pictures and measuring seeds. "Now they have things to keep them busy. You can see the change," she says proudly.

The Impilo Project has made a similar difference at the nearby Vulindlela Crèche in Kathlehong, a formal child-care centre with 42 children. Principal Beatrice Radebe explains, "Impilo has been teaching me that children must learn through what they need, not through what I want them to do." She walks over to Jabu, a five-year-old girl who has drawn a picture of a woman with green legs. The small girl stands proudly next to her creation. "I like it here. I can draw and write," Jabu says with a shy smile.

Ms. Radebe holds up the picture and recalls how at one time she would have corrected the girl's choice of colours. The principal declares, "I mustn't tell her that it is wrong. Now, they can do what they like with the drawing. The children learn through their senses."

Other components of the Impilo Project include an 'action research project' in Kathlehong and neighbouring townships that is trying to identify what families need to support their children's development. Their research found that deep poverty and schools that are not child-friendly proved to be major reasons why more than 100 school-age children in the community were not attending school. A 'back to fast track' initiative brought 100 out-of-school children, ages 7 to 14, back to school and helped them catch up with their peers.

The most important contribution of the Impilo Project may simply be that it recognizes the hard and lonely work of child-care providers in poor communities. In the back room of a flower shop in Kathlehong one day, a dozen local caregivers are attending a training session with Fanny Ntuli from the Learning Project, who is working with all Impilo practitioners in the district. Ms. Ntuli observes, "The Department of Education never gave funds to informal crèches. Now they realize that even an auntie in a shack is important to children. They just needed some guidance on how to do things better."

Freda Thusi, a tall, matronly crèche owner who is attending the training, stands up and declares, "This training has really empowered us, and it will help the children. It has given us the real impilo in our future."

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