Sustaining quality childcare and early childhood development services in the industrial areas of Lesotho

• In Event: Sustaining Nurturing Care through the child’s ecological environment: Innovative approaches and experiences from Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia, and Lesotho.

Proposal

Based on evidence and supported by 2030 SDG goals, a strong beginning and high-quality early care and education for children during the first three to five years (birth to kindergarten entry) is critical to positive child development and has the potential to generate economic returns, which impacts not only children’s lives but their families and society. Quality and play-based early childhood care and education (ECCE) daycares and centers can provide opportunities to reach children with critical services, including screening for development delays and health services, including immunizations, growth monitoring and promotion, and nutrition– in addition to cognitive stimulation and early learning. Access to quality ECCE services allows women to pursue paid work and children to reach their full potential. ECCE service can also create small business opportunities for providers of for center-based and home-based ECCE that could generate income while meeting the needs of children, families and communities based on national standards for quality ECCE. Access to such services is limited for children and families in Lesotho. Children face multi-dimensional poverty with 65.4% of all children aged (0-17) years deprived of quality childcare in various dimensions of wellbeing2. About 77% of children 0-23 months - receive inadequate nutrition, 64% face sanitation deprivation and 79% lack child protection. The country’s largest private employer is the textile and garment industry, with factories that produce and export garments to South Africa and the U.S. About 75% of factory workers are women, and the majority are single mothers who work 12-hour shifts per day, earning $146/month. The factory working mothers usually place their children in unregulated daycare centres run by daycare centre providers (caregivers) who operate at about 12-hour schedule. They have limited skills on childcare, Early Childhood Development, responsive caregiving, child nutrition, and limited optimal stimulating age-appropriate learning environment, and safety. To address the problem, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has, implemented an Integrated Early Childhood Development and Micro-business Management (IECD-MBM) that is aligned with the Nurturing Care Framework and responds to the socio-economic challenges of factory working families and daycare centres, including the quality of ECCE services. Central to the approach is catalyzing quality sustainable childcare services for under-4 years old children whose caregivers are mostly factory working single mothers. This presentation will highlight the early learnings from the IECD-MBM model that is anchored in the child’s ecological environment and promotes early childhood service linkages and supports across families, daycare, health facility, and national early childhood system for sustaining quality daycare services in Lesotho.

Author

• MAKHOTSO ENEY MOELETSI, CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES