News from the field
Our Mentor Mothers as the name implies, are all women, and they work with mothers in their local communities. There is a missing element in this equation, of course, which is the fathers. In our latest report from the field, we include news of our new initiative which works with the men.
MALE ENGAGEMENT
As in most societies, parenting in South Africa’s rural communities has been seen as a largely female role. Our Male Engagement in Early Childhood Development workshop tries to redress that. To be effective, this needs to be led from the top, and so we involve the Headmen of the villages we work in. For example, at our workshop on the 23rd May, Chief Mpumalanga Gwadiso was in attendance and the workshop was held at the Chief's Hall. This is an important new component of the Enable programme. It helps men to understand their role as fathers and to understand how this intervention will benefit men in their villages.
ENABLE PLAY
As we indicated in our Annual Review, we are building on the huge success of the Enable programme to integrate further development initiatives. Enable Play Learning is Enable's Early Childhood Development intervention that was launched in May. The target is to work with 1,000 caregivers of children between 2-5yrs (existing Enable clients). The intervention is based on (and very similar to) the Bright Start model. Toys will include puzzles, stacking cups, shape sorters, Snap cards, Lego blocks, picture cards, water cups. Additional components of the intervention are Early Literacy (using picture and word books), Nutrition, and Responsive Parenting. Bright Start has already seen encouraging results, which we’re looking to scale with Enable.
HOME AFFAIRS
Documentation is essential to accessing government services, yet many of our clients in remote communities do not have important documents such as birth certificates and ID Books. Our Home Affairs programme reaches out to these communities, utilising our trusted Mentor Mothers network. A recent programme took place in 3 communities over 3 days.