It was a long-awaited goal of ours to bring all of our ECD Network members together in one place for a celebration. After expanding out of our long held home of UGU district into Alfred Nzo and Harry Gwala districts we have not managed to get members together in one place. Until now, and what a […]
It’s Not Every Day The President Visits
In January 2022, the Nelson Mandela Foundation approved grant funding for the construction of three new Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres in WM-Mandela Municipality in Eastern Cape. The source of the funds for the Little Flower Pre-school was from President Ramaphosa who committed to donate half of his presidential salary when he took office. Little […]
Implementing the Social Employment Fund
Over the last few months, we have been incredibly busy implementing our Social Employment Fund (SEF) project, after being selected as a strategic implementation partner by the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). Under this fund, teachers who previously earned close to nothing while working at unfunded Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres will receive a monthly income […]
DUPLO to remote and under resourced ECD Centres
During 2021 Impande distributed DUPLO play and learn boxes to 150 ECD centres in WM Mandela Municipality in partnership with to Zero2Five. After seeing the difference DUPLO made at ECD centres that had nothing, we engaged with Care for Education to scale up the project. To our delight they shared our vision of reaching remote […]
Function Shift
Function shift – we have been hearing this term for three years. Government responsibility for Early Childhood Development (ECD) is moving from the Department of Social Development (DSD) to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) on the 1st April 2022. It has been a turbulent few years as there have been some mixed messages and […]
Expanding our reach
Impande is currently expanding operations to 2 new Municipalities – Umzimkhulu in the Harry Gwala District of KwaZulu-Natal and Ntabankulu in the Alfred Nzo District of the Eastern Cape. Both areas have high levels of poverty and unemployment, poor infrastructure and low levels of economic growth. Impande believes that the most effective developmental approach is […]
Building Dreams: Sibambesene ECD Centre
Drive approximately 30km on dirt road north of Dududu, hugging the Umkomazi river as it snakes it way through the valley and you will arrive at Ntshaseni area. It’s at least a 3-hour drive from Port Shepstone although referred to as ‘inland’ from Scottburgh. Here the new site of Sibambesene ECD Centre greets you. “Wow, […]
On the Ground Collecting ECD Data
There are a huge number of ECD centres in rural communities that function in isolation. In general, they are started up by women who decide they can do something positive for the children in their area. They start with what they have which is usually a building that doesn’t meet minimum norms and standards […]
Psychosocial Support in ECD
For the first months of 2021, Impande’s helpdesk and field workers focused on providing ECD stimulus support to Centres. In April, the monthly Learning Groups started again for the first time since November 2020. Knowing the toll that the pandemic has had on ECD practitioners and children, it was decided that the focus for Term […]
ECD Practitioners go the extra mile
Thuli is the founder of Masibambisane ECD Centre in the kwaMadlala Area. Over the years and especially during lockdown Thuli realised that most home environments in her community do not have enough resources or means to support the growth and development of children. Parents need support since some of them are working. Thuli started to […]