Essential principles for partnering with communities to provide culturally relevant preschool education: perspectives from Cameroon

• In Event: Cultural relevance in early education: practical strategies for community engagement and innovation

Proposal

Overview. The Dengbe Bide program engages indigenous Baka communities in Cameroon to create preschool programs that honor their language and culture. Mrs Anziom will present lessons learned from a qualitative study in Baka communities to inform the creation of a toolkit for scaling community-based preschool programs that prioritize cultural relevance.
Background and context. Dengbe Bide has evolved from feasibility test to robust preschool program through multiple phases of collaborative design, reflection, and iteration with teachers and community members to meet their changing needs, values, and aspirations. Dengbe Bide is designed by and for the Baka, a community of hunter-gatherers whose identity is linked to a forest that is increasingly threatened by mining, logging, and poaching. Primary school is in French, incompatible with nomadic life, and a locus of discrimination by teachers and students of the ethnic majority. Eighty percent of Baka adults identify as illiterate, which limits their ability to understand and defend their rights. The UN calls on states to offer indigenous children both traditional and school-based educations; one Baka father declared that pursuing both educational paths was as futile as hunting two deer at once.

"Dengbe Bide" is Baka for " two deer," and aims to enable children to pursue both traditional community-based education and mainstream formal schooling. Dengbe Bide engages community-nominated youth to serve as teachers equipping them with interactive audio curriculum developed by Baka musicians, storytellers, and voice actors. The recordings and complementary resources guide the teachers to deliver quality educational experiences despite their own low literacy levels. All materials are rooted in the Baka language, context and values.

Research questions. Having tested, evaluated, and iterated the Dengbe Bide model for nearly a decade, ASTRADHE is now focusing on pathways to scale. ASTRADHE’s scaling strategy involves supporting peer organizations to develop culturally relevant preschool programs with new communities. To this end, ASTRADHE conducted a qualitative study in participating communities to answer the following research questions:
- What dynamics and factors in Dengbe Bide’s creation and evolution engendered community engagement?
- What do community members feel are the essential core elements of the program?
- How does the program effectively prepare children for success in primary school and in the forest?
- How could the program better engage communities and prepare children to thrive?

Through interviews, focus groups, and participant observation with Dengbe Bide staff, teachers, students, parents, and alumni, ASTRADHE ascertained diverse perspectives on these guiding questions. The team then analyzed findings to draw out essential practices for partnering with communities to create culturally relevant preschool programs. ASTRADHE will apply the findings of this study, in partnership with Two Rabbits, FHI 360, and Durham University, to create a toolkit of resources and guidelines drawn from the Dengbe Bide experience that communities can apply to their respective contexts to create culturally relevant early childhood programs.

This presentation will cover the methodology and findings from the qualitative data analysis, and lessons learned that organizations can apply to enhance community engagement in early childhood education in their respective contexts.

Author

• Brigitte Anziom, ASTRADHE