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Alternatives in Early Childhood Care and Education.Report of the Bernard van Leer Foundation,1984-1985.Bernard Van Leer Foundation, The Hague(Netherlands).8687p.Bernard van Leer Foundation, P.O. Box 85905, 2508 CPThe Hague, The Netherlands.Reports Descriptive (141)

MF01/PC04 Plus Postage.*Child Welfare; Developed Nations; DevelopingNations; *Early Childhood Education; FinancialSupport; Foreign Countries; *International Programs;Minority Groups; Multicultural Education; ProgramDescriptions; *Rural Education; *Urban Education

ABSTRACTThe Bernard van Leer Foundation is dedicated to early

childhood education and care of socially and culturally disadvantagedchildren. Part one of this report from the Foundation includes abrief biography of the founder, an account of the Foundation'sorigins and development, and an introduction. In part two, a globalreview of program developments is followed by summaries of the morethan 100 projects supported by the Foundation during 1984-1985, and areview of dissemination and information activities. Also included aresix special reports which describe in detail the work andachievements of projects in Kenya, Malaysia, Israel, The Netherlands,Sweden, and Peru. Part three presents the Foundation's financialreport and accounts for 1984 and 1985. The report is amplyillustrated with black and white and color photographs and othergraphics. (PCB)

***********************************************************************Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made

from the original document.***********************************************************************

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The Bernard van Leer Foundation has threeaims in publishing its first biennal report:

to introduce the Foundation and its projectpartners to readers unfamiliar with theorganisation's history and objectives;

to provide a succinct account of theFoundation's work during the year 1984 and1985;

to highlight key developments in theFoundation's world-wide programme offinancial and technical assistance in the field offamily and community-based early childhoodcare and education.

Part I includes a brief biography of the founder,Bernard van Leer, an account of theFoundation's origins and development and anintroduction by the Chairman of the Board ofTrustees (1934-1985), Dr. Andries van Dantzig.Part II features a global review of programmedevelopments by the Foundation's ExecutiveDirector, Dr. Willem H. Welling, followed bysummaries of the more than one hundredprojects supported by the Foundation duringthe period of the report, and a review of theFoundation's dissemination and informationactivities. The Foundation's financial report andaudited accounts for 1984 and 1985 are set outin Part HI.

Six special reports describe in detail the workand achievements of projects in Kenya,Malaysia, Israel, The Netherlands, Sweden andPeru. Despite the very different settings inwhich these projects are working, the reportsclearly highlight the important role beingplayed by the Foundation and its projectpartners in demonstrating how low-cost,community-based approaches are addressingthe needs of disadvantaged children and theirfamilies.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation takes pridein the projects it supports but, as Dr. vanDantzig observes in his introduction, TheFoundation is acutely conscious of the glaringdiscrepancy between the means at its disposaland the needs of the world's disadvantagedchildren. The reason for publishing this report,therefore, is not only to make the Foundation'swork better known to the world, but also tocontribute to the world's awareness andunderstanding of the needs of its children'.

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Cover photographs

I. Zimbabwe2. Sweden. photo

courtesy Sa-mar ab3. The Netherlands4. Italy5. Kenya6. Israel7. Peru8. Malaysia9. Federal Republic of

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All photographs. unlessotherwise indicated. bycourtesy of the projectsconcerned

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The Bernard van Leer Foundation

The Bernard van Leer Foundation, which bearsthe name of its founder, is an international,philanthropic and professional institution basedin The Hague. The Foundation's income isderived from the Van Leer Group ofCompanies, a world-wide industrial enterpriseof which the Foundation is the principalbeneficiary shareholder. Created in 1949 forbroad humanitarian purposes, the Foundationhas, since the nineteen-sixties, concentrated onthe deielopment of low-cost, community-basedinitiatives in the field of early childhood careand education for socially and culturallydisadvantaged children from birth to eight yearsof age.

The Foundation provides financial support andprofessional guidance to governmental,academic and voluntary bodies concerned withsetting up projects to enable disadvantaged

Office:Koninginnegracht 52, The Hague,The Netherlands

All mail to:P.O. Box 85905, 2508 CP The Hague, TheNetherlands.

Telephone (070) 469238 Cables LEERFUNDThe Hague Telex 33678 bvlfh n1

Design: Emmerik & Emmerik, The HaguePrinted by Albani by, The Hague

© Bernard van Leer Foundation 1986

children to benefit fully from educational andsocial development opportunities. TheFoundation is currently supporting nearly 150projects in some 40 developing andindustrialised countries. In accordance with itsstatutes, the Foundation gives preference tocountries in which the Van Leer Group ofCompanies is established.

The dissemination, adaotatic n and replicationof successful project ou:comes are crucial to theFoundation's work. The aim is that the positiveresults of Foundation-supported projects will beabsorbed and adopted by local or nationalbodies responsible for educational and otherservices affecting young children. Projects aretherefore carefully evaluated so that theiroutcomes will be fully understood and sharedwith policy makers.

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Alternatives inearly childhood careand education

Report of theBernard van Leer Foundation,1984-1985

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7

Contents

pageI. The Foundation

Bernard van Leer (1883-1958) 1

Origins and Development of the Foundation 2Introduction by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees 3

H. The ProgrammeProgramme Review, 1984-1985 by the Executive Dire:tor 4Current Programme, 1984-1985 7

Affica 8Special Report: Kenya 13

East Asia and Pacific 18Special Report: Malaysia 23Europe 27Special Reports:Israel 38The Netherlands 40Sweden 44Western Hemisphere 50Special Report: Peru 60

The Project on Human Potential 65The Network in Action 66

III. Financial Report 70IntroductionBalance Sheets and Income & Expenditure Accounts 71

for 1984 and 1985Notes to the Financial Statement 73Auditors' Report 75

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The first van Leerdrum factory inThe Netherlands.From a watercolourby H. Heijenbrock

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9

I. The Foundation

Bernard van Leer (1883-1958)

rr he man who was to bequeath the1 ownership of his world-wide industrial

enterprise to humanitarian endeavour leftschool after completing only his primaryeducation. Soon after the turn of the centuryand barely out of his teens, Bernard van Leerwas employed by a hardware store inAmsterdam, then joined a major Rotterdam-based steel, machinery and building materialscompany, becoming the manager of itsAmsterdam branch very early in his career. Butit was not in his nature to remain someoneelse's employee. In 1919 the basis of what istoday the Van Leer Group of Companies waFlaid with the founding of Van Leer's UnitedFactories Ltd., 'for the processing of and tradingin all types of metal, wood, paper, cardboard,cork, glass, twine anu %.;ine...'

The story of Bernard van Leer and hisenterprise, his entrepreneurial spirit,organisational ability and flair for sales andpublicity, is part of Holland's industrial history.It was the logical consequence of multi-nationality having been one a his ar:cles offaith right from the beginning, that in 1939, theyear war broke out and 20 years after theincorporation of the company, he had set upshop in a number of European countries andelsewhere. With the German occupation of TheNetherlands, the country's Jewish communitycame under threat and Bernard van Leer leftwith his family for the United States. Upon hisreturn in 1945 he had to rebuild most of hisorganisation and within a few years he had notonly regained his pre-war position, but hadexpanded the enterprise considerably. After hisdeath in 1958, the Company continued to grow

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and by 1984 it was established in 31 countriesand employed nearly 14,000 people.

Bernard van Leer's originality and perseverancecontributed significantly to the Company'sgrowth and evintual success, especially duringits early years.

His humanitarian record, however, is less wellknown than his career as an industrialist.Among the many institutions to benefit fromhis generosity were: the University ofAmsterdam (a hyperbaric oxygen surgical tank);the Royal Dutch Lifesaving Society (a lifeboatand boathouse), as well as a number oforganisations serving the Dutch Jewishcommunity. (Before his departure fromGerman-occupied Holland, Bernard van Leerleft the funds to establish and support anorchestra which, under the baton of Albert vanRaalte, was to become the only ensemble inwhich Dutch Jewish musicians could performduring the war years.)

In 1949, in consultation with his wife Polly andhis sons Willem and Oscar, Bernard van Leerdecided to bequeath his entire proprietaryinterests in the Company to a humanitarianinstitution established for the purpose in hisbeloved Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland, andwith objectives which which were broadlydefined.

The Foundation

Origins and Development ofthe Foundation

ti'le death of Bernard van Leer in 1958,fle entire share capital of the Van Leer

Group ,...,i'Companies passed to the humani-tarian institution he had created earlier toadminister his bequest. This institution foundits ultimate form in 1972 with the establishmentof the Bernard van Leer Foundation in TheNetherlands. This Foundation forms part of theVan Leer entity, together with the Van LeerGroup Foundation, a separate legal body whichactually holds and administers the share capitaland accumulated reserves, and Royal PackagingIndustries Van Leer, which generates the pro-fits which make possible the work of theBernard van Leer Foundation.

During the first years of its existence, theFoundation's objectives and concerns remainedbroadly humanitarian. It was under theguidance of Bernard van Leer's son, Oscar, thata specific focus developed. The Foundationwould 'concentrate on the learning problems ofenvironmentally disadvantaged children andyouth... living in any country where the VanLeer Group is established, who are impeded bythe social or cultural inadequacy of their back-ground and/or envitanment...(to help them)...achieve the greatest possible realisation of theirinnate intellectual potential'. The 'compen-satory approach' dominated the organisation'swork during the first decade. The majoremphasis of many projects was on the cognitivedevelopment of disadvantaged children andyouth. Since that period, knowledge andunderstanding of the processes involved inovercoming childhood disadvantage haveadvanced significantly and the Foundation'sprogramme has developed in response both toworld-wide findings and the experience gainedby Foundation-supported projects.

Even in the early years, however, clear signswere emerging of the eventual character of theFoundation's programme. Among the firstgeneration of projects, the Early ChildhoodEducation Project in Jamaica, designed toimprove the quality of the teaching in thatcountry's Basic Schools, began a process ofdevelopment and change which has hadconsiderable influence throughout theCaribbean, emphasising the non formal, low-cost, community-based approach to earlychildhood education. Four projects in Australia

were working with primary and pre-primaryeducators to meet the particular needs ofMoriginal children and their parents. Thesepr )jects underscored what was to become acharacteristic Foundation respect for andutilisation of the values and richness ofindigenous, local culture.

What began as a general philanthropic bodywith a broadly-defined interest in humanwelfare, has become a specialised institution forthe benefit of socially and culturallydisadvantaged children, with an extensive andstill growing body of project-based experiencein the field of early childhood care andeducation.

Grant commitments, 1972 -1985 inDutch Guilders

The following Table shows the Foundation'sgrant commitments, in two-year periods, since1972, when the Foundation's current specialisedfocus began to develop.

Period:1972-73 I 74-75 I 76-77 I 78-79 I 80-81 I 82-83 I 84-85

16.63 I 18.90 I 20.18 I 36.21 I 16.68 I 22.92 I 60.11

Dn. (mil ions)

Membership of the Board of Trustees, 1972 -1985

Office bearers (period of membership of Board,followed by period in office)O. van Leer (Netherlands, 1972- )Chairman: 1972-1983A. van Dantzig (Netherlands, 1972-1935)Chairman: 1984-1985J.A. Ritmeester van de Kamp (Netherlands,1972-1985) Vice-Chairman: 1976-1985J.M. van Susante (Netherlands, 1972-1976)Vice-Chairman: 1972-1976

F.H. Detweiler (United States, 1972-1976)Sir Michael Perrin (United Kingdom, 1972-1976)Sir Hugh Springer (Barbados, 1972-1978)J. Kreiken (Netherlands, 1973-1982)J.Y. Eichenberger (France, 1976-1982)D. Lloya-Robinson (United Kingdom,1977-1981)A.A. Th. M. van Trier (Netherlands, 1978-1979and 1982-1983)P. Ylvisaker (United States, 1977-19316)P. Zusman (Israel, 1980- )I. Samron (Sweden, 1982- )P.J.J. Rich (France, 1982- )V. Halberstadt (Netherlands, 1984- )

Members of the current Board of Trustees(1986) are listed inside the back cover of theReport.

AdministrationExecutive Director: W.11. Welling (1969-).

The Foundation

Introduction by the Chairmanof the Board of Trustees

he publication of this Report is an1 important step for the Bernard van Leer

Foundation. After two decades of work devotedto the development of its own approach to theproblems of disadvantaged young children, theFoundation feels that it has reached the point atwhich the fruits of this world-wide body ofexperience can begin to be shared.

The Foundation is much more than a grant-making body. Equal importance is given todirect involvement in project design, resourcedevelopment, training, evaluation and thedissemination of project outcomes. TheFoundation's emphasis on professional as wellas financial inputs does not depend on a largebody of staff at headquarters or in the field.Much of the Foundation's professional input isachieved through the mobilisation of expertisefrom within the project Network; an informal,world-wide family of nroject leaders and staff,who share their experience throughparticipation in ivisory missions, seminars andmeetings, later- project visits and publications.

During the two years under review in thisReport, the Board of Trustees approved 63major new projects, or new phases of existingprojects. Each decision represents theculmination of a considerable amount of work;the drafting of an initial proposal, often byfield-level project staff unfamiliar with thesophistications of grantsmanship'; negotiationsbetween project sponsors and the Foundation;and the careful analysis of potential benefitsand risks by Foundation staff. For theFoundation, in tying to play a pioneering rolein its chosen field, is a risk-taking institution.Because of its independence, the Foundation isfree to make contact with and work withgovernment bodies and non-governmentalorganisations in a wide variety of political,religious. economic and cultural settings.

This Report describes something of the rangeand depth of the Foundation's work during thelast two years. The work (and what is describedhere can only be the lip of the iceberg )depends on many different individuals andgroups and this is an appropriate occasion onwhich to acknowledge their various contribu-tions. The Van Leer Group of Companiestill Ighrut the world generates the revenue

which the Foundation re-invests in the cause ofeducational and social development. Past andpresent members of the Board of Trusteesexercise stewardship and provide a policyframework for the Foundation's mission.Trustees also take a persona, interest in theprogress and eevelopment of individualprojects. The professional skills and sensitivityof the staff enable the Foundation to worket ctively with a wide variety of partners inmany different and difficult settings.

Finally, the leaders and staff of the projectsthemselves contribute not only overcomingchildhood disadvantage in their own localitiesbut also, through dissemination and the sharingof knowledge, to a worldwide recognition of theneeds and potential of disadvantaged childrenand their families.

The Foundation is acutely conscious of theglaring discrepancy between the means at itsdisposal and the needs of the world's disadvan-taged children. The reason for publishing thisReport, therefore, is not only 0 make theFoundation's work better known to the world,but also to contribute to the world's awarenessand understanding of the needs of its children.

It is a privilege, on behalf of the Board ofTrustees, to introduce the Foundation's Reportfor the years 1984-1985.

A. van DantzigChairman, 1984-1985

II. The Programme

Programme Review, 1984-1985by the Executive Director

Itis increasingly evident that when parents are

encouraged to function as the young child'sprime educators, this has a considerable impacton the child's subsequent development. It isalso apparent that change itself can have adepriving effect on young children; that thefamily needs support not only to cope withrapid social change but also to provide childrenwith the personal and intellectual skills societynow expects; that schools too must learn torespond to change; and that disrupted, a.,gry ordefensively apathetic communities must bestrengthened to generate the will, attitudes andskills needed to confront and surmount thechallenges they face.

Within education, broadly defined, it is clearthat formal schooling has only a limited part toplay in the development of a wide range ofhuman potentials. The primary and mostpowerful of the child's educators are theimmediate care-givers - usually mothers - andfamily groups, not only in the first years burthroughout the first decade. Parents and otherfamily members are educators, but they rely.nostly on folk experience and the light ofnature to discharge a task rendered increasinglycomplex by rapid change. The family - 'thebuffer, the filter and the bridge' as it has beencalled - is the key to the child's development.Hence the major role for all professionalsconcerned with children, including educators, issecondary to tht.0 of the family. What is neededis a massive transfer of skills and knowledgewithout which, as we increasingly realise,schools and other formal institutions can dolittle.

The family is part of a community of adults,adolescents and children. Much of the profoundshaping of the growing human being goes onoutside the family and outside the school.Hence, just as parents are clearly a prioritytarget, so too others in the community have keyroles to play.

Within the Foundation's programme in 1984-1985, four areas of emphasis can be identified:the importance of linking children's educationaldevelopment with efforts to meet their physicaland social needs; the needs of minorities; theeducational problems of urban areas, andeducation in less developed, mainly rural areas.

The whole child

The Foundation's world-wide programme ofwork in the field of early childhood care andeducation derives, in terms of its originalimpetus, from the concept of 'compensatoryeducation'. What is evident in the mid-eightiesis that thinking and practice have moved a longway beyond a narrowly cognitive view of pre-school education as a 'remedy' for a wide rangeof social and environmental ills. With a focuson the needs of pre-school children, and therealisation of their optimal potertial as the aim,action has to take place within a series ofconcentric and widening circles: the child andhis siblings; parents; other family members whofunction as care-givers, and the widercommunity; involving all these 'agents' -adolescents, young adults, grandparents andprofessionals from many disciplines - in anetwork which creates a coherent educationalenvironment for the child.

This has in olved Foundation-supportedprojects in a broadening of their originalconcerns. Custodial day care has given way toan emphasis on creativity and stimulus; alimited concern with the purely cognitiveaspects of the child's development has come totake account of physical and social factors;teachers in pre-schools and primary schoolshave joined forces with those working in suchfields as nutrition, health and environmentalsanitation, thus adding depth and substance tointerventions with respect to the disadvantagedchild while, at the same time, broadeningcontacts with the community, voluntary bodiesand public authorities.

Minorities: indigenous and migrant communities

Work with minorities, particularly in Europe,Australia and the Americas, has grown duringthe period. The Foundation has contributed notonly to thinking about and drawing attention tothe needs of minorities, but actually doingsomething for and - more importantly - withthese groups.

0

(Left) Colombia: 'takingaccount of physical andsocial factors'(Right) Germany (FR):woriang with Turhishmothers and children

Within 'minorities' two c;..tegories are evident:indigenous groups who retain a culturedifferent from that of the dominant majority,such as European Gypsies, AustralianAboriginals, Lapps, eskimos and nativeAmerican Indians, with all of which groups theFoundation has been working; and recentimmigrants. This second category, at least inEurope, is that region's own version of the`north-south dialogue' whereby, for twentyyears or more, impoverished communities ofthe Mediterranean littoral and elsewhere havewitnessed the emigration of their ambitiousyoung people in search of employment. Theconsequent clash of cultures and severeadaptation problems have provided obvioussettings for Foundation interventions within the

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context of an emerging multicultural society.

Projects among these groups reflect (andsometimes lead the way in) a clear emphasis onbicultural education for pre-school and primarychildren and, most recently, parents. Projectswith migrant groups stress the education of themother and the importance of home-basedwork, facilitating her transition to a more opensociety. At the same time such projects arestrengthened by their respect for the indigenousculture.

Children of the cities

Depressed urban areas, whether the decayinginner-cities of industrialised countries or theshanty-towns and bidonvilles of the developingworld, have been a focus of Foundationconcern for many years. In contrast with theearlier stress on curriculum innovation as thekey to change and development, there is now amuch greater emphasis on building socialcompetence and reinforcing self-concept, toenable disadvantaged children to develop in aneducational milieu which is recognisably part oftheir owr. reality.

This requires building up competence andconfidence among parents, particularly mothers,

5.

who are themselves frequently the rejects of theeducational system, to help them function aspara-professional workers in various pre-schoolfacilities or, perhaps more crucially, to developtht.ir ability to function as primary care-giversand informal educators during their ownchildren's earliest years.

Urban projects overlap, to some extent, withthe first category, especially where projects haveaddressed the phenomenon of internal andinternational migration. Responses haveincluded the adaptation of the pre-schoolcurriculum, harmonising it with the specialneeds of immigrant children; the involvementand training of mothers; the promotion ofhome-school links and the introduction of

aspects of other cultures into the establishedschool.

These initiatives call for as high a level ofcommunity involvement as can be achievedwithout losing clarity of purpose. Whencommunity groups become involved in actionfor children and families they learn skills andgain confidence which enable them to exertgreater control over their own destinies. Theylearn, for example, that their environment canbe improved so that children need not die ofdiarrhoea or be riddled with parasites; thatofficialdom's attention can be drawn to theirlocal needs; that resources can be mobilised toprovide safe play areas, to support informaladult education and to bring lonely and isolatedyoung mothers into contact with society, or toprovide low-cost, locally-made toys and learningmaterials for rudimentary pre-schools.

Children in neglected rural areas

The educational and social problems ofdisadvantaged rural communities, whether indeveloping countries or neglected areas ofindustrialised countries, differ in degree ratherthan in nature. These problems, which haveshaped the Foundation's programmaticresponses, are recognisably common:

inadequate infrastructure and services; theauthoritarian nature of highly centralisededucational and welfare systems; materialpoverty and isolation especially of youngchildren and their mothers; passivity and poorself-concept, and a lack of awareness of therudiments of child care and development. TheFoundation's work in recent years has focusedon this cluster of problems in widely diversesettings: isolated communities in the WesternIsles, off the Scottish coast; the coastal andinterior villages of Papua New Guinea, Sabahand Sarawak, farm labourers' families in theOrange Free State of South Africa, and villagecommunities in Kenya, Mozambique, andZimbabwe.

In many such cases the teacher is seen as therepresentative of an educational system whichhas little to do with local reality. Parentsbelieve that they have little to contribute to theschool and, consequently, little they can do fortheir children's education. An importantdimension of the Foundation's work in suchsettings is to transform the attitudes of teachersand parents; to help teachers respect the cultureand customs of the children and their families,to move away from lecturing and rote learningtowards an appreciation of learning throughenquiry. The challenge is to change parentsfrom being passive spectators to becomingactive participants in the life of the school.

One of the strategies evolved is on-the-jobtraining for teachers by means of regular, small-scale and non-threatening workshops. A secondapproach involves a sensitive programme ofhome visits to learn about parental attitudesand encourage parents to express their views tothe teachers. Projects attempting to bringparents into closer touch with teachers andother professionals responsible for children'sdevelopment are also to be found in a widevariety of settings: the isolated mountaincommunities of southern Italy; indigenousminority communities in Norway and Sweden;island communities off the west coast ofIreland; villages in the hinterland of Portugal'sAlgarve and Andalucia in Spain, and theinterior of Pernambuco State in Brazil are someof the rural locations in which Foundation-supported projects are seeking to create aproductive partnership between home andschool in support of young children'sdevelopment.

The Foundation's mission remains the realisa-tion of human potential among depresssed,disadvantaged and deprived children andfamilies. Since the nineteen-sixties, when thismission was broadly defined, programmeexperience has led to a more specific concen-tration, which accords appropriately with thelimited resources available to a privateinstitution. Experimental practice and researchfindings indicate the importance of the firstseven years of the child's life. Projects from theearlier years, which focused on adolescence aretoday much less typical of the Foundation'sprogramme (except in relation to the growingnumber of projects concerned with the children

of single parents, particularly teenagers).However the accumulated knowledge andexperience gained in projects concerned withyoung school-leavers remain part of theFoundation's intellectual stock, and part of itsliving memory.

The Foundation is actively engaged in a searchfor alternative approaches to the care and

many ,-,-,ilunne of &-education of the .vorldadvantaged children. The need for alternativesarises from an increasing awareness of theinadequacy of institution-based solutions; thelimited effectiveness of the all-knowingprofessional; the spiralling cost of state-directed`welfare' and the unsuitability of solutions taken(usually) from European and North Americancontexts and 'parachuted' into developingcountry settings.

The Foundation's programme, as outlined inthis Report, bears witness to the vitality of thesearch and shows increasing evidence thatcommunity-based, alternative approaches arecapable of achieving not only limited andlocalised 'experimental' effects, but also

in settings as diverse as Kenya, Malaysia andPeru of being expanded to provincial andnational levels.

Willem H. WellingExecutive Director

The Programme

Current Programme, 1984-1985

Introduction

Eloundation support fo: major projects isnormally approved for periods of three

years. Each phase is subject to careful appraisaland decision by the Board of Trustees.Administratively, each phase is regarded as adistinct project. However, in the summarytables in this section of the Report, projectphases have been grouped together.

During the period covered by the Report(January 1984 to December 1985), the totalnumber of major projects being supported bythe Foundation, some of which started before1984, was 103. During the same period, theBoard of Trustees approved 63 new majorprojects or new phases of existing projects.

These continuing and new projects constitutethe Foundation's current programme for 1984-1985 and are listed in the tables. Each project isidentified by the name of its sponsor - theagency (or agencies) formally responsible for itsimplementation in 1984-1985 - and its title.Those new projects (or new phases of existingprojects) approved during the period are alsodescribed briefly.

The column 'Initiated' refers to the year inwhich project activities under a Foundationgrant started. 'Duration' refers to the number ofyears for which Foundation support had beenapproved, as of December 1985. In the case ofsome projects approved in late 1985, implemen-tation is shown as starting in 1986.

The columns headed 'Commitment in Dfl.'show the amounts of money (in DutchGuilders) committed by the Foundation, notactual payments.

The first column shows the total committed forall phases of the project since its inception upto the end of 1985. The second column,`Committed, 1984-1985' identifies the proportioncommitted during the period covered by theReport. It should be noted that these figuresrefer to the maximum amount committed, inDutch Guilders, at the time of project approval.

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The tables are grouped by major geographicalregions: Africa, East Asia and Pacific, Europeand Western Hemisphere, each preceded by ashort introduction highlighting majordevelopments in the Foundation's work in theregion. The maps incbided in the regionalintroductions indicate the countries in whichFoundation-supported projects were active.

As can be seen from the tables, the Foundationcommitted giants totalling approximately Dfl.58 million to major projects during the periodcovered by the Report. In addition, theFoundation made a number of small grants, notlisted here. These took the form of contri-butions to humanitarian appeals hi response tonatural disasters in countries in which theFoundation was already active, and other small,one-time grants to support work related to theFoundation's field of concern.

The idea of the Early Learning Centre has ,soThe Programme found expression in the St. Mary's Centre in

Zimbabwe which the Foundation begansupporting in 1975. Independence had aprofound impact on the Foundation's work inZimbabwe. In place of a small-scaledemonstration exercise there was an immediatemove to scale. Women's groups, seeking newpurposes and opportunities, dedicatedthemselves to the establishment of anationwide system of village level pre-schoolcentres. In this new context, the St. Mary'sCentre has provided crucial training support atthe supervisory level and the Foundation'sefforts are now devoted to dealing with thecomplexities of large-scale implementation.

A AA 1- ell-V11 1%.Ct

cr n African traditional society, the family andthe whole community had collective

responsibility to initiate a child into the normsof society... But now, owing to changesresulting from our efforts to industrialise, thecollective approach is no longer possible...'With these words, spoken at a Foundation-sponsored seminar in 1982, Kenya's thenMinister of Education, Dr. J.K. Ng'eno, placedthe development of modern pre-schooleducation in Africa within a historical context.The Minister was describing a cycle in thinkingand practice in the field of early childhood careand education which is becoming increasinglyevident in Africa and, indeed, the whole world.In response to the pressures of 'modernisation',traditional ways of meeting the cognitive andother developmental needs of young childrenbreak down and are discarded as irrelevant.Western models are imported (often to meetthe needs of elite and middle class groups)which governments then try to extend to theless advantaged majority of the population. Asthe inherent unsuitability and unrealistic cost ofthese models become evident, the need fordecentralised, low-cost, parent and community-based alternatives is recognised. the virtues oftraditional forms are re-discovered, in a newcontext.

The Foundation's earliest grants in Africa, suchas its support for the Institute of Race Relationsand the Council for Higher Education in SouthAfrica in the nineteen-sixties, reflected both thewide scope of the Foundation's work at thattime, and its commitment to overcoming dis-advantage and injustice through interventionsin the field of education. Rejecting such notionsas 'Bantu education', the Foundation has madea conscious and deliberate decision to continueworking in South Africa, within its own field ofendeavour, to counter the effects of dis-advantage and injustice among young childrenand their families; concentrating on projectsamong the black, Indian and colouredcommunities. It was in South Africa that theFoundation's first deliberately plannedendeavour in early childhood education inAfrica was made, in the form of the EarlyLearning Centre. This idea was pioneered inthe Cape and replicated in Soweto and, in amodified form, in Chatsworth near Durban.

Elsewhere in Africa during 1984-1985, theFoundation has supported the development ofcommunity-based early childhood care andeducation initiatives in Kenya, Morocco andMozambique. A project in which theFoundation is joining forces with theGovernments of Botswana, Lesotho andSwaziland, and Unicef, has also been initiated.The salient features of these projects areoutlined in the following table, and a fulleraccount of the Foundation's work in Kenyaappears in a Special Report on page 13.

To complete this brief review of theFoundation's involvement in Africa, it isappropriate to refer to the Integrated Educationfor Development project in Nigeria which theFoundation supported from 1974 to 1984. Basedon the application of training in the field ofrelevant technology, the project provided skillstraining and job creation for :'oung people inrural areas, through the establishment of fivecentres in Plateau State and two in Benue andKano States. A number of small, cooperatively-run workshops have been set up by the project'sex-trainees. Though the project's involvementwith school leavers placed it somewhat outsidethe mainstream of the Foundation's world-wideprogramme, as it has developed in recent years,the Integrated Education for DevelopmentProject's contribution to the fulfilment ofNigeria's need for appropriately trainedmanpower and the practical application of the(now fashionable) concept of relevanttechnology characterise it as an importantdevelopment in the history of the Foundation'swork in the continent.

17

vlsto itraglo

KENYA

MOROCCO

ZimbabBotswana

Mo.zamb'que

wazilandesotho

Ministry of Basic EducationEstablishment of National Centre for EarlyChildhood Education (See Special Report,page 13)

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

I

1984I

6I

1,250,000I

1,250,000

Ministere de la Jeunesse et des Sports andUniversite Mohammed V 111 I

Pre-School Teacher Training Programme 1986 3 1,077,100 1,077,100

Responsibility for early childhood education in Morocco is divided betweenvarious ministries and private bodies. There is a marked absence of cur-riculum planning and staff training. Recently the Ministry of Youth and Sporthas been made responsible for authorising new pre-schools. The Ministry, incooperation with the Faculty for Educational Services at the Mohammed VUniversity in Rabat, is developing a new approach to pre-school teachertraining in Rabat District. A one-year, intensive, field-based training course willbe offered to experienced but under-trained teachers. The emphasis will beon practical work in a demonstration early childhood centre in a nearby'bidonville'.

MOZAMBIQUE Ministerio da Sacide(Ministry of Health)Community-Based Services for Young Children 1985 3 900,000 900,000

The services developed to meet the needs of Mozambique's more than 2.5million children have, until recently, been based on somewhat rigid models,dependent on professionals and without inputs from parents or the commu-nity. As such, the services have been unable to reach out to more than a fewthousand children. With Foundation support, the Ministry of Health is under-taking a multi-pronged effort to change the orientation of its services to youngchildren; in particular, encouraging parent and community participation. As afirst step, three areas have been selected: Delgado Province, Maputo City andMaputo Rural District.

k4 t 4g

NIGERIA

SOU I H AI-RICA

Government of Plateau State and theIntegrated Education for Development(Relevant Technology) BoardTraining for Primary School Leavers in RelevantTechnology

Western Cape Foundation for CommunityWork(until 1984 sponsored by The Cape EducationalTrust)Athlone Early Learning Centre, Kew Town

Entokozweni Early Learning and CommunityServices CentreEarly Learning in Soweto

Early Childhood Development TrustEarly Learning Resource Unit, Kew Town

Early Childhood Development Trust/Community Education and Development TrustChatsworth Early Learning Centre, Durban

Rural Pre-School Development Trust'Ntataise' Experimental Pre-School Project forChildren of Farm Labourers, Viljoenskroon

Centre for Social Development, RhodesUniversityTraining for Early Childhood Care and Educationin Grahamstown and East London

Capital gran!

1049

Nigeria: a school leave,being trained to makeeducational toys

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

1974 10 2,810,000

1971 15 3,783,000

1974 12 4,000,100

1978 9 1,862,000

1976 14 2,457,400 238,800 *

I I I I

1980 6 568,700

1983 3 310,000

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

BOTSWANA, Governments of Botswana, Lesotho and1

11

!LESOTHO and Swaziland I

SWAZILAND Enhancing National Capacity in Early Child- 1986 4 1,347,800 1,347,800

hood Care and Education

More than 15 per cent of the population of these countries most of the adultmales - are permanently away from home, providing labour for South Africa'smines and industries. This has contributed to a breakdown of traditional familystructures in which young children suffer from serious neglect, malnutritionand stunted development.The Governments of the three countries are joiningforces with Unicef and the Foundation in a project designed to build up themothers' skills through the selection and training of locally-recruited para-professional workers. A small cadre of fully-trained professional staff will bedeveloped to provide training and support.

ZIMBABWE Diocese of Mashonaland and Ministry ofCommunity Development and Women'sAffairsSt. Mary's Early Learning Centre 1974 11 3,105,800

Foundation for Education with Production(FEP International)Pre-School, Health and Adult Education in a 1981 3 568,500 568,500Rural Settlement Area

Zimbabwe inherited a distorted economy in which rural unemployment co-exists with a severe lack cf skilled human resources. Infant mortality is highana child malnutrition widespread. A comprehensive development schemeat an abandoned farm in north-eastern Zimbabwe is enabling former freedomfighters and their families to be resettled and trained in agriculture and relatedoccupations. Foundation support provides for pre-school services, the tim-ing of pre-school staff, health education for members of the cooperative, adultand parent education. These training and service activities are being providedto the member-families of the cooperative and neighbouring communities.

Zimbabwe: children'sperformance a! St. Mary'sEarly Learning Centre

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

Ministry of Community Development andI

I I I

Women's Affairs I I

Rural Pre-School Project 1986 3 990,000 990,000

Rudimentary pre-school groups in rural Zimbabwe developed from the feed-ing posts established during the drought of 1981-84. These were run by localwomen volunteers who, though untrained, initiated play activities for theyoung children coming for food supplements. These informal groups con-tinued after the feeding scheme was stopped. The project will providetraining for these local pre-school workers, some of whom receive a smallstipend from parents, in order to upgrade their skills and abilities. The projectis starting in three economically depressed Districts and aims to achievenationwide coverage in the long term. Training is provided by District-levelpre-school supervisors who were themselves trained by the St. Mary's EarlyLearning Centre which the Foundation had supported earlier.

Kenya: see Special Report

21

/

L

Special Report: Kenya

Harambee find EarlyChildhood Education

Ur ow did a modest training court for thirtystudents, held in Nairobi in 1972, lead to a

nation-wide training programme for Kenya'spre-school teachers? One tlement washarambee, a unique Kenyan concept meaning`self-help'. Translated into the field of pre-school education, harambee has meant activecommunity participation in the building,equipping and running of hundreds of loan pre-schools, with parents and local communitymembers being responsible for employingteachers and supervision. The second essentialelement, which has characterised the earlychildhood education project in Kenya, has beenits flexibility. The project has developed as aprocess, as a result of planning, trial, re-planning and further trial, rather than rigidadherence to a blueprint.

A 1969 survey found that some 200,000 childrenwere enrolled in nearly 5,000 day care centresand pre-schools throughout the country, all ofwhose teachers were untrained. These centrescatered for only a very small proportion of thechildren in the zero to six age group. Withindustrialisation, traditional child-rearingsystems were declining. A growing number ofwomen were being employed outside the homeand families could no longer depend on theirtraditional support systems: the extendedfamily, the community and friends.

Modest beginnings

A very few centres, run by voluntaryorganisations, churches, employers and privateindividuals, situated almost entirely in urbanareas, had a training course for pre-schoolteachers. The two-year course was expensiveand graduates were extremely unlikely to befound in pre-schools in rural areas. In 1971 theKenyan authorities and the Foundation agreedto cooperate in developing a cognitively-orientated experimental training programme inearly childhood education: the TrainingScheme for Pre-School Teachers. The projectwas very modest in scope: to train a small cadreof supervisors who, it was hoped, would trainothers. 1 he proposal called for the developmentof a teacher training programme, a modelnursery school curriculum and the training of

personnel to serve as nursery schoolsupervisors.

The project was located within the institute ofEducation in Nairobi which was a departmentof the then Ministry of Education. The firstcourse in 1972 was to train 30 primary teachersto work with pre-school children. Many of thesequalified teachers tended to be rigid and formalin their practices.

Much had been learned during the first coursewhich contributed to the planning of thesecond, in which a group of 15 traineesemployed in day nurseries in Nairobi weresponsored by the Public Health Department.These women, many of them very experiencedin working with young children, generally knewa great deal about youngsters and related tothem very well personally; but they had littleidea of how to plan an enriched learningenvironment. Accepting the challenge, thetraining team modified the theoretical emphasisof the early stages of the course, and concen-trated on guiding the trainees on how to applytheir knowledge in practical situations.

This stage of the project provided an excellentopportunity to build the capacities of theproject team, not only in training, but also inplanning and evaluation. A dedicated core staffwas formed, mast of whom have remained withthe project for more than a decade - providingremarkable continuity, technical excellence andfield knowledge.

1974-1982: Moving beyond Nairobi

After the two Nairobi courses there was afundamental reappraisal of the work. At thatstage the City Council was unable, for financialreasons, to release any more teachers fortraining, preferring to rely on those alreadytrained by the project to provide in-servicecourses for others. The project team alsorecognised that in order to fulfil theircommitment to develop a training scheme andmaterials with country-wide relevance, a moreintense effort directed towards the rural areaswas needed. Two County Councils were willingto sponsor trainees and provide supportfacilities. As these areas, Murang'a and Kiambu,were reasonably close to Nairobi, they seemedthe ideal starting point.

The two yea, training programme had twomajor components: one year's residentialtraining and one year of internship. There wasno prescribed syllabus as this was the firstcourse of its kind in Kenya. Ideas were drawnfrom elsewhere which seemed relevant to theKenyan context, but by the end of the year adraft training syllabus had been developed.Teaching practice in the third term enabledtrainees to test out new ideas in the classroom.During the second year, trainees worked in pre-schools and nurseries in Nairobi, and began toappreciate the need for careful planning ofactivities, keeping records of work, devising

Local materials

T t was recognised at a very early stage thatI much of the material used in pre-schooleducation in Kenya was foreign in concept andcontent. Thus, one of the central objectives ofthe project has been to develop a curriculumwhich is educationally suitable and locallyrelevant. The approach, based on the harambeeideal, was to involVe the teachers who weregoing to be the users _nd implementers. Duringthe first phase in Nairobi, Teachers' andTrainers' Guides were developed whichconsisted of the knowledge, experiences andfeedback gained'during the training period. Butwhen the project moved to the rural at as these,,Guides proved to be of limited use, written, asthey were, in English. Both trainers andteachers therefore had to draw heavily on theirown experiences to build up curricula. Theadvantage of this approach was that thematerials developed were directly relevant tothe teachers and the children in their ownlocalities. Teachers also encouraged people intheir communities to collect stories, poems,riddles and games which were then introducedinto learning/teaching activities. This emphasison using the local environment also meant thatteachers literally collected whatever they couldget - stones, sticks, cobs, shells, wood and othersafe materials - to use in activities with thechildren.

appropriate materials, noticing children'sindividual stages of development and assessingtheir needs.

A major change in the project at this stage wasthe redesigning of the training programme. Theone-year residential course proved too costlyand was too long for the County Councils andthe teachers. A six month in-service course wasdesigned which alternated short-termresidential training with fieldwork in theteachers' own classrooms. Residential sessionswere held during the holidays so that schoolswould not lose their teachers during term time.This pragmatic response to local constraints infact proved to be a valuable training method,with its continuous alternation of theory andpractice.

The first rural training course organised onthese lines was held in Murang'a in 1975. Theemphasis was on the developing child; howactivities could be organised to meet his needs,and the use of locally available materials toenhance these activities. As project staffexpected, they found that untrained turdteachers with limited reading skills orexperience in using printed materials, tended to

obb

'Our Stoilest,astory book In lakilyu,produced by the project.Another example appearson pages 68-69.

'teach' little children in ways unrelated to theirneeds. As a staff member of the project noted:'Teaching is mainly verbal and 1;ttle attempt ismade to help children develop a basic under-standing of concepts that lay the foundation forfuture learning. A lot of time is spent onmemorising letters and numerals and on rotecounting.'

From the start, the project team took con-siderable pains to gain the commitment of ruralauthorities and set up mechanisms.forcollaboration with them and with parent grow's.The County Councils, for example, agreed toassist by releasing selected teachers, and byproviding suitable training sites, materials andtransportation.

The project team adopted the view that in-service courses should be organised within theparticipants' own environments. This meantthat team members moved from their base atthe Institute of Education in Nairobi to th,1project sites where courses took place. Otuermodifications included the organisation offollow-up sessions with trainees aftercompletion of courses and the identification ofpotential trainers among course participants.

These new trainers, after receiving furthertraining themselves, designed and conducted in-service courses for other teachers in their areas.Thus, although only 35 teachers participated inthe initial Kiambu course in 1977, a smallnumber of them subsequently ran seminars andsix-month courses for 300 other teachers.Likewise in iviurang'a, an initial 20 trainedteachers later provided training for a further 282of their colleagues.

Two further rural districts were included in theproject's second phase between 1979 and 1982:Keiyo/Marakwet and Kilifi. The centralcomponents of the project's activities were tobe the preparation of trainers, the running ofdistrict-level training programmes, communityinvolvement, and expansion. It was hoped thatthrough further training the trainees woulddevelop the skills and competence to organise

IL A I

and run in-service courses for teachers in theirown districts.

In Kilifi, the project team decided not toorganise formal, in-service courses. Instead theydeveloped a system in which a group ofuntrained teachers were attached to a trainer fora period of apprenticeship, augmented byconsultations between the trainers and teachers.Most of the trained teachers in the District haveassisted in training others through thisapprenticeship system.

Evaluation: 'consistent with local needs'

The project has been subject to both internaland external evaluation. A report published inMay 1982 found that the participatory model oftraining and curriculum development 'increasedthe commitment and the dedication of theparticipants to the innovations in pre-schooleducation' while trainers and trainees'developed the confidence that made them verykeen to provide the ideas and skills acquiredduring training' and 'facilitated the involvementof the local authorities and the community'.

The teachers 'had mastered the basic skillsrequired ... their adaptability and flexibility wasevidenced by the manner in which they cateredfor a very wide range of children and hadappropriate activities for very young childrenindeed. Most ... had acquired better ways ofinteracting with the community and gettingmore support for the schools'. The childrenwere lively, creative, confident, independent,

adequately socialised and portrayed a state ofgeneral alertness'.

The trainers had succeeded in generating'training styles that are consistent with the localneeds and with the philosophy of the project.Through these training programmes manyuntrained teachers are being orientated to thenew teaching approach and use of materials'.

The support of local authorities and thecommunity was 'manifested in the support theygive to pre-schools such as donation of land,putting up buildings through harambee efforts,employment of teachers, supporting feedingprogrammes and providing equipment and

learning materials'.

The evaluators also noted that 'Theinstitutional arrangement at the central levelwas such that it allowed enough flexibility forthe project staff to take full responsibility foroperationalising the project's objectives. Theywere able therefore to review the objectiveswhen necessary, plan programmes of action andimplement the training and curriculumdevelopment programmes.'

1982: 'We have only done a quarter of the job'

In October 1982, the Ministry of Basic Edu-cation and the Bernard van Leer Foundationheld a national seminar on pre-school educationin Maliadi, with the aim of reviewing theprogress achieved during the project's firstdecade, and making 'recommendations for therapid development of services to the pre-schoolchild in Kenya'. The Seminar was to be acrucial stage in the growth of the project from alocal to the national scale. In his openingaddress to the Seminar, the Hon. Dr. J.K.Ng'ono, EGII, my, Minister for Basic Education,drew participants' attention to the fact that onlyabout 400,000 children in the 3-6 age rangewere enrolled in some 8,000 pre-schools. Hecontinued:

'... it is clear that so far we have only doneabout a quarter of the job and I am trying toimpress on you ... that the job ahead of us inthis area is a big one and I am counting on youto come out with concrete proposals ..'

The Seminar's wide ranging recommendationscovered all areas of pre-school educationincluding planning, coordination, supervisionand inspection, resources, participatingagencies, curriculum development, provision ofmaterials, research, and sources of finance.Participants envisaged a strengthened role for

the Ministry of Basic Education and theprovision of a variety of training programmesfor teachers, trainers, supervisors and otherspecialists. A key recommendation was that aNational Early Childhood Education Centre beestablished. The endorsement of thisrecommendation by the authorities reflectedthe success of the project team in demonstrat-ing the effectiveness and relevance of theirapproach in the Kenyan context.

National Centre for E rly Childhood Education

January 1985 saw the official start of anestablishment unique to Africa, the KenyanNational Centre for Early Childhood Education(NACECE) located in the Institute of Education.

Together with the Ministry of Education,Science and Technology in Nairobi and otherpartners, the Foundation had agreed in 1984 tosupport NACECE for an initial three years.

The lor3-term aim is to set up early childhoodteams in all 41 of Kenya's Districts. NACECE willtrain trainers who will move out progressivelyto establish district teams based on localcentres. NACECE gives back-up to the emergingdistrict centres through guidance, on-the-jobtraining, improved materials and new ideas oncontent. Each district centre should thusbecome a microcosm of the original project,supported by local resources but with a capacityfor growth and diversification resulting fromthe impetus given by the National Centre.

During 1985, nine District Centres for EarlyChildhood Education (DICECEs) were set upprimarily to serve their own and nearbydistricts. Thirty-eight trainers joined the newtwo year in-service training programme run bythe Centre, while also training teachers in theirown areas. Training sessions of two to fourweeks are held in Nairobi and in the Districtsand these are interspersed with fieldwork,during which trainees are visited and assisted byNACECE staff.

The project team continues to disseminate thequalitative improvements that characterised itsearlier work: focusing on the promotion of childgrowth and development rather than thetraditional didactic emphasis; the introductionof learning materials drawn from locallanguage, culture and experience; and the activeinvolvement of parents, young people and otheradults in the work of the local pre-school. A keyelement in the project is the inclusion of childhealth and nutrition in the work of the teams.This is in line with the Government's broaderplans for the provision of primary health careand the focus on Districts as the main unit fordecentralised development. Unicef iscollaborating with the Ministry in this part ofthe project.

Trainers

enjoy everything to do with pre-school, it'sa part of me' says Mrs. Asenath Mbae, 43, a

trainer with the Meru District Early ChildhoodEducation Centre ( DICECE). She originallytrained as a primary school teacher but hasdone two courses in Israel, the first on childcare and the second on supervision andplanning.

In 21 years Asenath has seen many changes. 'Inthose days the majority of parents didn't see theneed to take children to pre-school' she recalls,but now things are different. 'Throughharambee (scif-help) many schools have beenput up by parents themselves. But there arepressures from other areas of education and inKenya, primary and secondary school educationis still viewed as more crucial than pre-school,Hence, if parents are asked to provide an extraprimary or secondary school classroom in ahurry, they rarely hesitate in converting the pre-school class to this other need.'

In almost all areas the majority of pre-schoolteachers are women. 'Pre-school teachers arepoorly paid and the men look down on the jobfor this reason. Women, on the other hand, canpersevere whereas men cannot. Some day,when pay is good, men will surely join, andmost likely take over from the women.' ButAsenath would not like to see this: 'Few menhave the love, concern and patience that pre-school teaching needs', she says.

It is non a year since the Meru DICECE wasstarted and the impact is already being felt.`People know about us. We have visitedschools, held seminars, supervised and assistedthe previous supervisor. In Meru today pre-school has acquired new meaning'

But if only there were more trainers! The dis-trict is 9,922 square kilometres with six trainerscovering over 450 pre-school units. The trainersalso cover Isiolo and Kitui outside the District.`There is a lot of work and we need morepeople to share the responsibilities' saysAsenath. There are now demands for DICECEtrainers to train for other organisations but theyjust can't spare the time or the personnel.

`We give support to the teachers - trained oruntrained. We travel to schools to see what ishappening, help solve problems where we can.'The problems vary from lack of suitableteaching materials to inadequate salaries or latepayments, hungry children etc. 'If a teacher isuntrained she probably will not know how touse local materials to make teaching materials.As supervisor/trainer I can help by pointing outwhat she can do with even banana fibre, coffee

MGR Nurse Mrs. Kithoreexplains oral rehydraitiontherapy at a trainingcourse for pre-schoolteachers

"Zs

mike cobs, bottle tops =. all things she;can piekAilifor, free around the homesteads.', ,

IlieptCEcE team usually take on the task ofreirianisini Parent/teacher meetings wt. they.try. to the responsibilities of theparents to pay the teachers. Often parents are'very unlerstanding after such meetings 'butmany stilk_Vginder why they must pay for pre-School education when primary school is free'explains Asenath. 'It is up to the trainer, usinglocal leaders, to explain the difference and toinstil the need for parents to contribute. Whereparents can't afford it, other NGOs sponsor theirchildren and in such areas attendance is oftenvery poor.' (NGO: Non-GovernmentalOrganisation.)

Parental expectations can cause unnecessarypressure on teachers and the trainers must bevery supportive. For example: 'We come acrossso-called educated parents who expect their pre-school children to be able to read and write, notto mention speak English. But pre-schools arenot meant to teach such skills. The pre-schoolteacher is not trained to teach this way. Neitherdo children have the capacity at this age.'

For Asenath, the expansion of the pre schoolprogramme is like a dream fulfilled. Havingstarted so long ago when few parents, or evengovernment departments, realised the need forpre-school facilities, the development of districtcentres, the involvement of parents and inter-sectoral collaboration is very encouraging. Thewelfare of children is slowly being accorded theimportance it deserves' she says.

For many parents, even in rural Kenya,paying school fees and providing uniforms

,pre the only obligations normally required of'them. For Lois Nolenkuku there is more to herchildren's pre-school education than that. Lois'five children aged two to eleven years shouldprovide enough occupation for each day of herlife as a Maasai mother, but her pre-schooladd much more to her daily work.

lois gets up at 3 a.m. each day, then pra:vs,deans her gourds and other utensils. milks thecows, wakes the children, gives them water towash with, then she separates the calves fromthe other animals and gives the children theirmilk for breakfast.

`When the children leave for school I join otherwomen and we walk up the hill sin kilometresaway to fetch water. I take two jerry cans withme. The twenty litre one I take to school whilethe smaller, five litre can is for the house.' Theschool, Olasiti Primary School, is about twokilometres from Lois' house. Her journey toand from the water source and to school istherefore 14 kilometres. And this is just one ofthe many trips she must make to fetch watereach day.

In the primary school compound there is a one-room wooden pre-school class. At the farthestcorner of the compound is a two-room building.This is the school kitchen. Outside are two bigplastic containcrs. Lois empties her u .ter inone of these. She then joins other mothers towash the dishes and clean the floor of thekitchen.

`Each mother must bring water each day,irrespective of the distance. Firewood toprepare the Uif (gruel) must also be brought bythe mothers.' Three kilometres away, by theroadside, there is a huge dam of rain water. It isdirty and shared with animals. But the Maasaimothers have no option. It is their neaccstsource of water. It is used to prepare porridgeusing maize meal, dried skimmed milk andsugar. Occasionally a mother will bring freshmilk to add to the porridge. The parents alsopay the cook's salary.

Despite these daily requireme: s, Lois is veryhappy with the school. She herseL' never wentto school. 'Ever since it was started, all mychildren have gone through the school. I like itvery much' she says.

The Programme

East Asia and Pacific

Uoundation involvement in this diverse1 region began in the early nineteen-seventies, with projects concerned withAboriginal education in Australia and a study ofpre-school education in a suburb of Sydney.Work with Malaysia's Ministry of Educationbegan later in the decade, as did a Foundation-supported project in Singapore. Recent yearshave seen the continuation of work in thefield of Aboriginal education and the initiationof new projects in Australia, Japan, peninsularand eastern Malaysia, Papua New Guineaand Singapore. The Foundation has alsocollaborated in the development of culturallyappropriate early childhood care and educationservices in camps for refugees and displacedpersons in Thailand.

Conditions affecting the development of youngchildren in East Asia and the Pacific region varyconsiderably. Infant mortality in Japan, forexample, was seven per thousand live births in1982 (the lowest rate in the world, with Sweden)but 100 per thousand in Papua New Guinea.Despite the rapid growth of educational andhealth services in Malaysia, primary schooldrop-out rates remain high in some parts of thecountry and mortality rates in Sabah andSarawak are up to three times higher than inpeninsular Malaysia.

In these circumstances, Foundation-supportedprojects necessarily concern themselves withbasic issues, improving the quality andrelevance of lower primary education andaddressing the child's physical and environ-mental needs. The project in Papua NewGuinea is integrating Government inputs innutrition, education, health and agriculture,through work with village leaders and women'sgroups. In Sabah and Sarawak, the Departmentsof Education focus on enhancing the capacitiesof isolated, rural schools to meet theeducational needs of children living outside themainstream of development.

In the more industrialised environments ofpeninsular Malaysia and Singapore, children'sbasic educational and health needs are ingeneral being met. However, many children inthese societies are growing up in the midst ofvery rapid change in family and socialorganisation and in a complex, multi-cultural

context. More women are entering the paidlabour force and a very high proportion ofchildren are now cared for outside their homeson a daily basis. in both peninsular Malaysiaand Singapore, Foundation-supported projectsreflect governments' concern to enhance thequality and availability of pre-school educationand day care through the development of low-cost alternatives to traditional institutionalapproaches. The challenge, particularly inSingapore, is to maintain and improve qualitywhile developing services which are, in terms ofcost, capable of replication and expansion.

The Foundation's work it' the two most highlyindustrialised countries of the region, Australiaand Japan, focuses on meeting the needs ofchildren who, because of their minority statusor social pressures, have not benefited from theaffluence of the majority of the population. TheAboriginal Training and Cultural Institute isworking in five communities in northernAustralia where family and community-basedactivities to improve the care and edu-ltion ofyoung Aboriginal children are planned andimpiemertted by Aboriginal communitymembers themselves. Work among familiesliving in marginal circumstances in caravanparks in Australia's Hunter Valley is a morerecent initiative. In Japan, the Foundation hasjoined forces with an organisati6 a caring forsingle parent families forced into a marginalposition by social and economic pressures.

Despite the wide range of settings within whichFoundation-supported projects in the region areworking, they exhibit several common features,including an increasing emphasis on parent andcommunity participation and the need toaddress the disadvantaged child's educationaland other developmental needs in a holisticmanner. Projects in Australia, Malaysia andSingapore are also facing up to the challenge ofmulti-lingual and multi-cultural education andsocial structures. These and other themes ofcommon interest were explored in June 1985,when an inter-project workshop in Malaysiabrought several projects teams together for thefirst time in the region.

AUSTRALIA

PapuaNew Guinea

e

.46

iv

Macquarie University, School of EducationMount Druitt Longitudinal Study on the Effectsof Re-School Education

Aboriginal Training and Cultural InstituteLeadership and Management for AboriginalEarly Childhood Education

Newcastle College of Advanced Education(NCAE)

Early Childhood and Community-BasedServices for Families in Caravan Parks

190211

S

CommitmentDfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

I I I I

1981 3 979,400

I I I 1

1983 3 998,000

1986 3 697,500 697,500

More than 300,000 Australians live in caravan parks. Many are unemployedand cannot afford permanent housing. Recent surveys have highlighted theeffects of caravan park life on children. Children are described as beingaggressive or very fearful, unused to play, physically awkward and lacking in Commitmentverbal skills. The NCAE is developing a pilot orogramme for children and fam- in Dfl.ilies in 33 caravan parks in the Hunter Valley region of coastal New SouthWales. The project aims to improve young children's social, emotional and Initiated Duration Total to Committedphysical skills; to develop nutritional and health inputs, and to capacitate December 1984 -1985parents to work together to advocate improved conditions in the parks and to 1985utilise available educational and health services.

JAPAN Shakaifukushi-Hojin Betaniya Home1 1 1 1(Social Welfare Foundation, Bethany Home)

Services for Mothers and Children in Refuge 1986 3 564,400 564,000Centres

The number of single-parent families in Japan is growing. Divorce, separa-tion and violence within the family are pushing an increasing number ofwomen and their young children onto the streets. Bethany Home has twocentres looking after about 30 single-parent families and 250 children. A dayservice in these centres enables mothers to work. A 'mother education pro-gramme', run on somewhat conventional lines, is offered to the mothers. Theproject seeks to upgrade and transform the scope and quality of the centres'custodial and educational services by setting up a small-scale pilot pro-gramme in the centres. It is hoped that the new activities being developed willinfluence the work of similar centres run by other organisations and contributeto the formation of public policy regarding familie,, in need.

MALAYSIA Kementerian Pelajaran, Jlbatan Pelajaran,Sabah(Ministry of Education, Sabah State EducationDepartment)Upgrading Teaching in Rural Multiple-ClassSchools

Sabah has a predominantly rural economy. Much of the population lives insmall, scattered and almost inaccessible villages. The majority of schoolscater to a small number of children, with one teacher responsible for severalgrade-levels in one classroom. An earlier Foundation-supported projectdeveloped a mobile training team and materials production service to meetthe specific needs of teach ors and children in up to 60 such schools. The newproject is reaching out to more schools in order to train more than a thousandteachers, head teachers, supervisors and inspectors.

Kementerian Pelajaran, Jabatan Pelajaran,Sarawak(Ministry of Education, Sarawak State EducationDepartment)Learning Enrichment for Rural Schools andCommunities

981 8 2,260,000 873,000

1982 5

Kementarian Kebajikan Masyarakat1 1 1 1(Ministry of Welfare Services)

Alternative Child Care Services 1985 3 1,024,000(see Special Report, page 23)

PAPUA NEW GUINEA Ministry of Education I I 1 1

Family Development in Isolated Communities, 1982 4 895,000Gulf Province

SINGAPORE Institute of Education I I I I

Study of the Cognitive and Social Development 1983 6 372,000of Pre-School Children

909

ppmvell. Gume:denionWalion.

Commitmentin DfI.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

National Trades Union Congress (Nruc)Upgrading the Quality of Child Care Services 1985 3 472,100

With high levels of industrialisation and female participation in the labourforce, Singapore faces a shortage of child care services. Training for the socialsector has not been a high priority and existing child care services tend to beinstitutionalised and passive in character. The NTUC is one of the largest pro-viders of day care and is now developing a training and demonstration systemwhich will introduce an emphasis on the child's physical and social devel-opment and creativity, and skill and confidence building among parents. Theproject aims thus to transform the NTUC'S existing services for the care of chil-dren of workers in Singapore.

Alternative Child Care Services

The NTUC has taken on the challenge of expanding sorely needed day careservices through the development of a new, low-cost approach. The chal-lenge to the NTUC is to achieve good quality day care at low cost for mainly low-income families. The Government will provide some 70 facilities in the emptyground-floor spaces beneath multi-storey apartment buildings in which mostfamilies live. Community volunteers will participate in the design and runningof the new day care centres and will be trained in the care and education ofyoung children. Six centres will be developed by the project as part of a com-prehensive effort to open 70 community-based centres, serving more than8,000 families.

SPECIAL PROJECTS WITH REFUGEES AND DIS-PLACED PERSONS

United Nations High Commissioner forRefugees (umica) and Redd Barna (Save theChildren Fund, Norway)Alternative Education and Care for RefugeeChildren

In the refugee camps Fat up in Thailand for victims of recent conflicts in Indo-china, families succumi, Lk.) a situation of dependency, isolation, inactivity anddepression. When they are eventually resettled in other countries, their abilityto adjust has already been undermined by the trauma of war and thewretchedness of life in the camps. The project, with Foundation support, is col-laborating with several refugee organisations to improve the quality of childcare and education services, placing particular emphasis on self-help amongthe parents. The project's educational activities attempt to use children'severyday experiences to stimulate their all-round development.

Thailand: Hmong childrenat Ban Vinai reliNee camp

1986 3 1,293,800 1.293,800

1984 3 986,600 986,600

2O

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to Committer.,December 1984 -19851985

United Nations Border Relief Organisation1 1 1 1(uNalio) and Redd Barna

The Khmer Women's Associations on the Thai 1986 484,100 484,100Kampuchean Border

At the end of 1984, more than 250,000 people who had been surviving indesperate circumstances in Cambodia, crossed the border with Thailand.UNBRO, which has responsibility for the welfare of these displaced people,requested Foundation cooperation in addressing the needs of the childrenaged 0-7 years in the new border camps. Women in the border camps haveshown great initiative in developing economic and social activities in whichearly childhood programmes form an integral part. The project will assist theefforts of Khmer Women's Associations to provide for The cognitive, physical,social and emotional development of young children, drawing on theexperienca gained in the UNHCR camps.

41

Malaysia: the AlternativeChild Care ServicesProject (see SpecialReport) trains parents andcare providers fromdifferent communities toproduce learningmaterials and toys forchild care centres

Special Report: Malaysia

Alternative Child Care Services

Malaysia has a young population, one ineight of whom are aged four or less

according to the 1980 census. A nation-widesample survey, in 1982, estimated that therewere about 100,000 children attending child careservices while their parents worked. The sampleof 537 day care centres, catering for nearly 8,000children, mainly in peninsular Malaysia, rangedfrom private homes where two or three childrwere cared for, to institutional centres, basedfor example in plantations, where as many as350 children spent their days. The survey exa-mined the physical environment of the centres;the ages, ethnic backgrounds and numbers ofchildren; child-staff ratios, activities, fees andstaff qualifications and experience.

The findings came as a shock to all concerned.Only 163 were ranked as 'good' or better (and`good' meant that the centre met only minimalcriteria): the great majority were 'fair' to 'verybad'. The survey led to the Ministry of WelfareServices setting up, with Foundation support,the Alternative Child Care Services Project,operating in villages, towns and plantations.The long-term objective of the project, whichbegan in 1984, is to improve existing provisionsfor the care of young children through directinterventions in selected centres aimed attraining child minders and parents, andimproving nutrition and physical care. A large-scale training programme is extending projectstrategies to the thousands of child mindersbeyond the project's direct reach. At the sametime, a mass communication programme ispublicising the need for improved child careand locally-appropriate ways of achieving thisgoal.

A multi-ethnic approach

In the Malaysian context, an important featureof the project is that it caters explicitly to allgroups in the coun..;'s population. In additionto the major groups c f Malay, Indian andChinese children, the project also works withthe children of immigrant families, mainly from Information gatheringIndonesia and Indo-China. With children fromdifferent ethnic and cultural backgrounds, itfollows that there can be no single approach tochild rearing or child care. While some goals

are common to all groups, the project staffemphasise that in any specific situation, whatthe particular child eats, the type of interaction,the topics of discussion and stories will differ.The project is concerned to avoid prescribing a`right way' of caring for children. Project staffbelieve that care givers and parents can improvethe quality of life of the children and stimulatetheir development if they are provided withbasic skills and information. For example, manychildren are growing up in an environment thatis verbally barren. Bathing and eating may bean opportunity for rich non-verbal interacticnwith the care giver or mother but words orwhole sentences are seldom spoken at bath-time. Taking advantage of this opportunity,however, the project tries to stimulatecommunication at times such as bathing. Thetwo activities can go together - songs, talk, littlestories, as well as soap and water.

Preparation and site selection

For the Ministry, developmental earlychildhood care was a new area of work and,during the early months of 1984, the newproject team prepared then.selves by readingand discussing litc iture on early childhood,from Malaysia and elsewhere, and throughobservation at existing centres. This enabledthe staff to develop their own observationalskills and prepare teaching methods andchecklists to use in training others. Project staffalso learned at first hand about conditions atexisting centres, which enabled them to identifyareas most in need of attention. While theproject team was selecting 33 centres for itsexperimental direct intervention, the Ministrywas drafting a Child Care Centre Act, whichwas passed by Parliament in July 1984. Incontrast with many conventional definitions ofa child care centre, this Act deliberatelyencompasses very small centres, catering for asfew as four children, which are based inpeople's homes and which are, in fact, a verywidespread form of day care in Malaysia. TheChild Care Act sets standards for and registerschild care services. Small, informal centres alsoplay an important part in providing a source ofincome for the women who run them. Until thesurvey and the Child Care Centres Act, thesetiny centres had been virtually 'invisible'.

Extension of the project's activities is beingplanned to coincide with the stages ofenforcement of the law, so as to ensure that thenecessary supportive activities (particularlytraining of child minders) can be effectivelyextended to the areas concerned. This strategyof turning the 'project' into a 'programme' is tobe achieved through the formation of networksand resource centres.

341

In order to collect much of the informationabout the centres, project staff devised a simple

questionnaire to be used by local extensionworkers in the plantation and rural sectors. Thiswas not only the first time these workers hadever examined the conditions and shortcomingsof child care services but it was also the firsttime they were making home visits andreaching out to the parents and families todiscuss the problems of child care. The homevisits created an awareness ;.mong parentsabout the project as well as providing someinformation on their expectations, limitationsand readiness to involve themselves in the newapproach.

From the information gathered the project staffidentified the following main problems amongthe children:

- the children's personal hygiene was oftenunsatisfactory;

- there were few planned activities, indoor oroutdoor, for enhancing the physical, social,

Reports from the field

mental and emotional development of thechildren, and few toys;

- the food they were given often lackedsufficient nutritional value;

- children were frequently subject to coughsand colds;

- infants tended to be kept in hammocks asoften and as long as they could sleep;

- many children were slow in saying their firstwords and in learning to walk.

Shortcomings were also noted in the actionsand attitudes of the care providers and of theextension/community workers who aresupposed to play a supervisory role. Very few ofthese people had received any specific trainingfor their tasks, most were poorly educated,many had taken on the job from necessityrather than by choice. Extracts from fieldreports are included in 'Reports from the field'.

insisted the children could play well just bythemselves but were shy in our presence.

This report indicates how project staffattempt to encourage child care workers to

use low-cost, locally available materials toprovide greater stimulation for the children.

'During our previous visit no toys were seen at thechild care centre and we did not see any activities/games/songs/story telling organised by the careproviders. During this visit the situation was thesame. When we entered all the children were lyingdown on the platform ... According to the careproviders they had just had the meal and asalways had to lie down for a few minutes ... After20 minutes we suggested the children who were notkeen to sleep be allowed to get up ... We suggestedthe children be initiated into some form of activitybut the care providers did not understand and

'The care provider was then asked to go to thenearby shop for any discarded materials that thechildren could use such as boxes and returnedwith several cardboard boxes and gave them tothe children. There was instant grabbing,especially by two of the care provider's children.She broke them into groups and gave them a boxeach. There was shouting and laughrng. Theypulled the boxes, threw them, pulled them with achild seated inside and so on. Suddenly a childgrabbbed three boxes, ran to the corner of thecorridor and said, 'come, let's watch television'.Immediately a group formed around her, satquietly and watched the 'television'. We suggestedthey role play as actors/singers. There was a goodresponse and we had one singer after another,only they all sang the same Tamil song.

'The Chinese children also had a few boxes. Theyplayed on the other corridor - dragging, pushing,throwing and walking, balancing on their heads.

'The toddlers were also involved - they werebrought down from their cradles as soon as theyawoke. They crawled towards the noise and weregiven 'cart-rides' in the boxes.

The care providers watched silently and in vet),low tones, expressed that the children were reallyenjoying themselves and that it did make a changeto see them active and happy. They were alsoamused at the imaginative ideas and role play

from the children. These factors reinforced ourdialogue on child care and how they could fosterchild development. They observed and commentedon the difference it made to see the toddlers let,down from the hammocks. The care providersrealised how important it was for the child to haveopportunities to move around and mix. Socialinteraction with other children resulted in thechildren verbalising more and the care providerscommented,on the noise as well.'

Training

Activities carried out in the first 18 months ofthe project have been at different levels:

at larger centres, where extension workers,child minders and children participated, wit.'management and parents being drawn inwhere possible;

in villages, where workshop sessions wereheld for child minders, extension workersand parents on the productio:, of playmaterials;

at regional level where training-cum-workshop sessions were conducted for careproviders and extension workers;

at national level a workshop/seminar washeld to enable management and extensionworkers to exchange experiences and ideasand to expose them to major issues on trendsin child development in and outsideMalaysia;

within the Ministry itself, where severalhundred staff involved in the implementationof the Act are being trained.

These activities have given project staffsufficient understanding of needs andexperience to design three different types ofbasic training packages. The first is for illiteratechild minders with some experience of workingwith young children. This package is seen aspreparatory training for the second level whichis aimed at literate workers with some previoustraining. This can lead to the third levelpackage which is for those with relevantcertificated training in child development.

The project has started by training careproviders directly and including in the coursethe people who will be responsible foroverseeing and supervising the Child CareCentre Act: the Child Care Workers/Enforcement Officers, who are Ministry staff.Each training package is being revised in thelight of experience and in conjunction with theChild Care Workers. The project is alsodeveloping a basic training course for the ChildCare Workers in the areas of supervision andtraining as the aim is that these officers willundertake and monitor training activities forcare providers and extension workers in theirown districts and states.

In the first year at least 130 Child Care Workersfrom five regions were trained. The training wasaimed at imparting basic understanding of theneed for alternative child care (that is,alternative to the child's own home), the statusof he child care services, milestones of childgrt Nth and development, play and learningmaterials, the Child Care Centre Act 1984,supervision, and the identification of parentaland community resources. An essential elementin the training courses was observation skills for

which the project has designed a checklist.

The Ministry will identify and approve existingcentres providing better quality care. Their staffwill be trained to a level where they canthemselves train others and the centres will beaccredited as training and resource centres.

The managers of governmental and non-governmental agencies which provide child careservices have also been involved in the project.Staff have sought management views at locallevel in order to promote their activeinvolvement in terms of commitment andsupport activities. Despite initial problems it isobvious that progress is being made as can beseen by the extracts from field reports quotedon page 24. Parents have been involved asmuch as possible and activities have beenorganised at local level in order to createawareness among them of the needs of youngchildren. This means encouraging parentalwillingness to improve the environment of thecentres, to produce some basic play materials,and to provide adequate and clean clothing andmore nutritious food for their children.

Communication

The fourth component of the project is themass communication programme. This isattempting to utilise all available forms ofmedia in order to change attitudes and improvepractices relating to the care and developmentof young children. Articles have been publishedin local and national newspapers in each of thefour main languages of the country: Malay,English, Mandarin and Tamil. A national Tamillanguage women's magazine has published aseries of articles on the project's activities.Radio and television programmes have beenbroadcast and, with the help of the Asia-PacificInstitute for Broadcasting and Development, aseries of short education programmes and`spots' on infants and young children isplanned. These will be directed mainly atparents and will also be used as teaching aids.Women's groups, youth organisations andlabour unions are being used as media to createawareness while in one area, religious teachersand religious activities have been used as amedium of communication whereby theinformation can be absorbed in the context ofthe religion of the community.

The Alternative Child Care Project faces animmense challenge: an almost entirelyuntrained workforce responsible for the dailycare of around 100,000 young children. It hasresponded by insisting that all those responsiblefor the care of the child must be brought intothe effort to improve services. With legislativebacking, in the form of the Child Car CentresAct, the project team have made considerableprogress in a short time.

Malaysia: This infant'smother, who belongs to animmigrant community,works in a plantation.In this communityit is common tolearne infants swaddledin hammocks. (See SpecialReport, page 23.)

26 35

The Programme

Europe

For largely historical reasons, theFoundation's programme in Europe has

been very extensive. In 1984-1985, theFoundation was active in 12 countries,embracing a wide range of levels of develop-ment, languages, social and cultural problems,political systems of various colours.

Reverting to its origins in Europe in the latenineteen-seventies, the programme was verywide-ranging, covering youth work, socialeducation, cultural affairs as well as, in somecases, the Foundation's interest in earlychildhood education. At that time, the mainconcern lay in 'compensatory' early childhoodcurriculum development, typified by projectssuch as the Pilot Project in CompensatoryEducation (Ireland), 'Aide a Toute Detresse' inthe bidonvilles around Paris and, slightly later,by the Amsterdam Innovation Project. Thesewere projects distinctively of their era andreflected the kinds of results which accrued tosimilar projects elsewhere in the world,

By the period 1984-1985, the programme inEurope had acquired much more focus and wasoperating exclusively in the Foundation'spreferred area of action - family and communi-ty education to the benefit of the pre-schoolchild in marginal circumstances. The mainareas of variance between projects relate todefinitions of disadvantage in differingcircumstances and, significantly, to steps toprevent the probk ns of disadvantage that areactually caused by archaic institutional forms,of which Europe has an abundance.

A further powerful theme throughout theprogramme in Europe has been the endeavourto address, through, education and positivesocial action, the indisputable fact that Europehas become a multicultural society and that theold homogeneities which provoked thetraditional nationalisms have gone for ever.Through its work the Foundation has sought toaddress the multicultural issue - in TheNetherlands (with Turkish and Moroccanimmigrants, see Special Report, page 40), inWest Germany (with Turkish immigrants), inBritain (with Caribbean and Asian immigrants)and most recently in France with immigrantsfrom the Maghreb.

47-is

Equally it has not been forgotten that Europestill possesses many old, indigenous, non-mainstream cultures and that in these toochildren have been the victims of theunthinking drive towards ill-conceived nationalnorms. The project of the University of Umeatypifies this and sheds new light on theproblems of adjustment of minority groups innorthern Sweden, groups such as the Saami andthe Finns. (See Special Report, page 44). Asimilar project is now being carried out innorthern Norway under the aegis of theNordlands Research Institute. Concern withhistoric minorities has led to projects in theCeltic fringe of the western European seabordand, in differing instances, with the Travellingcommunity.

The Mediterranean south, Europe's frontierwith the Third World, has received con-siderable attention. In the Italian Mezzogiorno,in particular, a network of projects is arisingwhich shows the particular force of theFoundation's operational model in situations ofsocial neglect, where public institutions areunderperforming. The Mingardo project, begunin the early eighties in Mingardo, in themountainous region behind Salerno, has shed agreat deal of light on the issue of howcommunity self-reliance can be built around theyoung child and how hallowed structures suchas elementary schools can adapt themselves tofit neglected environments. The Mingardoproject has now produced two spin-off projectsin similarly demanding conditions, which arecombining to illustrate the importance of thesocial and educational dimension of develop-ment in addressing problems of under-development.

In Israel, as elsewhere in E grope, Foundationgrants in the nineteen-sixties supported a widerange of humanitarian initiatives. Recent yearshave seen a growing concentration on non-formal early childhood care and educationprojects among groups such as immigrants ofMiddle Eastern and North African origin, manyof whom were settled in 'development towns'and whom existing, formally-oriented serviceshave tended to treat as passive 'beneficiaries'rather than autonomous participants in theirown educational and social development. WithFoundation support an effort to work withdisadvantaged Arab families in Jerusalem's OldCity is now being expanded to other locationsthrougn the involvement of parents, family andcommunity members in child care andeducational activities.

The final issue which has become increasinglyprominent in the 1984-1985 period relates to thebroad question of where are the educational in-fluences on the young child, indeed who are theeducators? The Bristol Child DevelopmentProject which entered its dissemination stageduring this period began by looking at thehome, seeking to re- educate the professionalhealth visitors to regard the home as adevelopmental force. It has built further on thisto concentrate on strengthening the parent and

Belgium: children learningto distinguish shapes andcolours

groups of parents as the optimal deliverers of`education' within the context of the youngchild's life. Its converse has been one of theboldest challenges to date about whatconstitutes professionalism in dealing withproblems of the family. The policy implicationsof the Bristol project are very far-reaching.

Looking ahead, it is evident that during the1984-1985 period, the European projects reached

a new level of maturity. The issue emergingrelates more to the importance of networkingand of sharing information and experience thanto developing further 'innovative' work. TheSpecial Chairs at the University of Amsterdamand the Foundation's new resource centrearrangement with the Community EducationDevelopment Centre in Coventry, as well as thegrowth of local sub-networks, point the Y:ryforward.

7'

44.4r1 A4#*

49

Pedagogisch Centrum van de Stad Gent(City of Ghent, Pedagogical Centre)Ghent Pre-School Project

Vormingscentrum voor de Begeleiding vanhet Jonge Kind(Centre for Training in the Care of the YoungChild)Flemish Resource and Training Programme

The Ghent Pre-School Project, which ended in 1984, created a demandamong early childhood specialists and workers fora permanent facility for re-training and professional upgrading in Flemish-speaking Belgium. Theresource and training programme will meet this need by operating a decen-tralised training model in the five Provinces of Flanders, aimed at liberatingchildcare practitioners from formal, custodial approaches to a more sensitive,education-oriented vision of their work.

Universite de Liege, Laboratoire dePedagogie Experimentale(University of Liege, Laboratory of Exp^nmentalPedagogy)'Atelier-7', Support and Training Programme

Universite de I'Etat a Mons, Faculte desSciences Psycho-Peciagogiques(State University of Mons, Faculty of Psycho-Educational Sciences)Parent Education Programme

Projet 'Depart': Regional Training Programme inFamily Education

Foundation collaboration with the State University of Mons has led to thecreation of a model of family education. The University has launched a majordissemination exercise which would provide retraining and uackup in theform of materials and support for all professionals in francophone Belgiumconcerned with services to young children and families.

Universite de Toulouse-Le Mirail'Arpege' Action-Research Project with Parentsand Teachers

1

tl

CommitmentDfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

1979 6 1,520,000

985 3 700,000 700,000

980

977

1985

I

1979

6

7

3

I

6

1,457,600

,697,000

810,000

I I

1,209,000

91,500

810,000

France: .sthnulationthrough 'wake believe'

Germany (FR): one of thechildren participating inthe project for Turkish.fantilles

GE IRtviANY IlAtREPUBI IC

Commitmentin Dfl,

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

Forschungsgruppe Modellprojekte, EssenI I(Research Group for Model Projects)

Early Childhood and Parent Education in Turkish 1985 3 950,000 950,000Communities

People of Turkish origin form the largest single group of foreign workers inWest Germany. Integration with the host society has been difficult, especiallyfor young children torn between the two cultures of family and neighbourhood.The projcot is strengthening the work of the official bureaux for immigrantworkers by: providing Turkish children with special rre-school facilities; help-ing primary school teachers to understand these children's special needs;and developing parent education to build on the positive features of tracitionalchild-rearing practices.

t AN() Department of EducationYouth Encounter Project

Udaras na Gaeltachta(State Development Agency for Gaelic-SpeakingRegions)Parent-Based Early Childhood Education forGaelic-Speaking Ireland

Working among the economically-depressed islands off the west coast ofIreland, where levels of educational attainment (among other indices) are low,the project has worked with parents to instil an understanding of their ownvalue and importance in their children's development. Children's learning andparental participation are being transformed by increased confidence in theirown ability, based on a valid cultural identity. An extension of the project isconsolidating and expanding the work already initiated in the first phase, Aparallel programme, with the support of the Department of Education, is nowworking in the area's elementary schools, stimulating teacher-led training andmaterials development groups.

30

1980 4 655,500

1980 6 2,012,700 986,000

Eastern Health Board, and Child DevelopmentUnit, Bristol University (UK)Parent-Based Early Childhood Education inDeprived Environments

Traveller Parent Education and SupportProgramme

There are about 20,000 Traveller families in Ireland; the poorest group in Irishsociety. Unemployment, large family size, high infant mortality and inad-equate living conditions characterise many Traveller communities. Theseconditions have reinforced parents' low self-esteem, minimal or no schooling,passivity and isolation from statutory and voluntary 'caring' services. Theproject is seeking to involve Travellers, particularly mothers, in educationaland other activities which will encourage more positive anitudes towardsparenthood and child-rearing, and permit the growth of healthy and stimu-lating early childhood care and educational practices among Travel' -vs. TheCentre for Travelling People is closely involved in the management andimplementation of the project.

ISRAEL The Jerusalem FoundationEarly Childhood and Community Education inthe Old City

During its first phase the project developed a unique educational model, link-ing centre and community-based activities for young children and families indeprived neighbourhoods of the Old City. The project is playing a key role inthe re-thinking of the structure and organisation of all services for early child-hood and family education. The Jerusalem Municipality has joined forces withthe Foundation in an extension of the project, during which its positive out-comes will be institutionalised.

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated

I

1

Dation

1983 3

1986 3

I I

1979 6

Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, and1Community Psychology Counsellinc Services

Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

I

580,000

749.500 749.500

3,144,400 692,200

I

Education and Community Development in an 1981 6 1,418,200 808,200Industrial Community

From 1981-1984, a series of parent-oriented educational activities was devel-oped in Sderot, a development town in southern Israel. Through the training ofmother-counsellors and the re-training of professionals working in nurseries,young parents who were workers in Regional Enterprise factories participatedin a project aimed at involving them in their own children's education, thedevelopment of a constructive and positive home environment and efforts tobuild a more self-reliant community. The second phase of the project isextending the experience to many other young Sderot parents not working inthe Regional Enterprise factories, and becoming a part of the community as awhole.

Renewal Department of the Jewish AgencyEarly Childhood and Family DevelopmentProject, Morasha(see Special Report, page 38)

Pinchas Sapir Regional College of the NegevEstablishment of a Community Education Centre

Education and Community Development ir.Merchavim Region

The project began work in three isolated moshavim (cooperative villages)suffering from isolation, economic and social instability. The aim has bee 'obuild a self-reliant parent and child education programme as a starting 2%.

1 1 1

1982 3 885,000

I i 1

1983 3 120,000

1984 3 545,000

I

210,000

Commitmentin Dfl.

for autonomous development. An expansion of the project to eight furthermoshavim has met with a positive response from the communities. Low-cost, Initiated Duration Total to Committedparent-child activities run by local mothers trained as para-professionals and December 1984 -1985enrichment programmes at Well Baby Clinics have reached 85 per cent of the 1985target group.

Childcare, Family and Community Education for 1985 3 1,177,000 1,177,000Ethiopian Immigrants

Some 12,000 Ethiopian Jews have settled in Israel since the mid-seventies,many coming during the drought and famine of 1984-85. Without moderneducation and coming from conditions of considerable poverty in ruralEthiopia, many families find the experience of adjusting to their new homelandtraumatic. While official services have been fully deployed to meet theimmigrants' physical needs, social and cultural integration has been moredifficult. The project, which is located in Beersheva, and draws on earlierFoundation experience in the Negev, is providing an alternative to the passiverelationship often created by the services. Skill-building within Ethiopian fam-ilies; the validation of the immigrant's own culture and experience and theactive involvement of parents in decisions affecting their children's welfareand development, characterise the project's approach, which focuses on thedevelopment of children aged 0-6 years.

Trust for Early Childhood, Family andCommunity Education ProgrammesEarly Childhood and Comm .ity Education inArab Communities

The experience of the kindergarten and parent education programme in theOld City has stimulated a demand for wider dissemination of the modelthroughout the Arab community in Israel. A feasibility study identified fourareas where continuation of the East Jerusalem project's comprehensiveeducational services for pre-school children linked with home-based familysupport programmes was needed and where there was a readiness on thepart of local leaders to become involved. The common strategy in the fourproject locations will be the application of the low-cost, tested trainingprogrammes for para-professional workers who will serve Well Baby Clinicsand day care Centres.

Trust for Education and Community Project,AcreEarly Childhood Care and Education in a-iIntegrated Arab/Jewish C,rnmunity in AcreTown

Acre, in northern Israel, has a mixed Jewish and Arab population Acre faces anumber of problems: poor housing, high unemployment and a lack of ad-equate educational facilities. The project is being developed to bring Arab andJewish parents, children and other community members together in a cooper-ative effort to overcome some of the problems affecting young children. Pro-ject activities include home-based enrichment programmes, day care centresand child minding services as well as parent education classes and commu-nity leadership training to enable residents of deprived neighbourhoods torepresent their needs more effectively to the authorities.

ITALY Comune di Limbigite, Centro DocumentazioneScuola(Municipality of Limbiate, EducationalDocumentation Centre)Upgrading of Teachers and School-Home-Community Integration

Comune di Milano, Ripartizione Educazione(Municipality of Milan, Education Department)Community-Based Alternatives to InstitutionalDay Care

I I I

1985 3 1,055,700 1,055,700

1986 3 1,326,000 1,326,000

1979 6 987,000

1 1 1

1985 3 650,000 650,000

The City of Milan has an outstanding reputation for the provision of services forchildren of pre-school age, including day care centres. The high cost of theseservices, however, and the lact that many mothers of children aged 0-3 do notwork outside the home have led the Education Department to seek alternativemeans of bringing services to families in the City's working class districts. Theproject is pioneering the training of para-professionals recruited from amongnon-working mothers, and the interaction of health and social serviceprofessionals with parents is being encouraged. The project, which is takingplace in one of Milan's inner districts, will be evaluated prior to the expansionof successful elements to other districts.

Istituto per la Promozione dello SviluppoEconomico e Sociale (ISPES)(Institute for Economic and Social Development)Community Learning System for Isolated RuralAreas, Mingardo, Southern Italy

Creation of Centres for Educational Initiatives forChildren in Earthquake-Affected Areas

Early Childhood and Community Education inBasilicata, Southern Italy

Basilicata is one of the poorest of Italy's Regions, mountainous and thinlypopulated. The Region is contiguous with Mingardo and shares thecharacteristics and problems of that area. The project's objectives include theintroduction of in-service training for pre-schoo' and elementary levelteachers; the development of a curriculum based on local culture andrealities; the mobilisation of individual parents and parents' groups, joiningforces with the school and improving the educational quality of the home.

THE NETHERLANDS

Italr: a puppetpedimnante in Imnbiate

Commitmentin DfI.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

1979

1979

1986

6

6

3

1,918,000

1,918,000

1,380,000 1,380,000

Gemeente Haarlem(Municipality of Haarlem) 1 1 1

Bicultural Education for Immigrant Mothers and 1980 6 2,234400Children(See Special Report, page 40)

111.1

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

Gemeente Maastricht1 1 1 1(Municipality of Maastricht)

Creativity-Based Curriculum Development in the 1982 3 1,015,000Kindergarten and Primary School

Universiteit Amsterdam, Stichting Centrumvoor Onderwijsonderzoek(University of Amsterdam, Centre for EducationalResearch)Creation of Professorships

The Centre specialises in action-research in the field of education. Twoimportant Foundation-supported projects (in Amsterdam and Maastricht)have resulted from cooperation between the Centre and the Foundation. Theproject will support the creation of three special Professorships which willunite the Centre's research and teaching work with the Faculty of SocialSciences. The project includes an information-support component which isproviding the Centre and other facilities with access to crucial educationalreference materials and necessary expertise.

986 5 375,000 375,000

Museum voor het Onderwijs(Museum of Education) 1 1 1 I

Programme for the Young Child 1985 3 730,000 730,000

The Museum provides educational services to schools in Tht. Hague andfocuses on the theme 'Man and His World'. Traditionally catering to the 9-18age group, the Museum is now reaching out to younger children. The projectwill develop support materials for teachers of primary school children andprovide expertise in the education of the pre-school child. More youngchildren will have access to the Museum's collections and facilities as a resultof the project, which will also include an outreach component.

Stichting het Kind in de Buurt1 1 1 1(Child and Neighbourhood Foundation)

Support for Young Families at Risk 1985 3 1,310,000 1,310,000

The northern provinces of The Netherlands suffer from a high level ofunemployment and consequent social problems. In Groningen, 25 percent ofthe labour force is out of work With the breakdown of the traditional familystructure, families with two earning members, incomplete families, oftenheaded by teenage parents, are becoming common. Many eke out aprecarious living and are involved in petty crime, drug abuse and prostitution.The young children of such families, isolated from the mainstream of society,are particularly at risk. The project will try to address the problems facing thesefamilies by training young parents and adolescents in parenting techniquesthrough practical activities at selected crèches.

NORIN,0( Nordlands Forskning1 1 1 1(Nordlands Research Institute)

Bicultural Early Childhood Education 1984 3 991,400 991,400

The Saami people are among Europe's oldest and most distinctive ethnic andcultural minorities. Those living in mixed communities in coastal and centralareas have tendea to regard themselves as disadvantaged. As a result, manySaami parents pass on to their children negative self-images which arereflected in poor performance at school. The project is working with Saamiparents and with teachers, helping them to run early education groups. Theproject's stress on the use of the local Saami languages and culture isintended to increase and improve children's self-confidence and self-conceptand equip them to cope with the demands of the school system and thechallenge of living in a culturally mixed society.

it

PORTUGAL Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian(Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation)Development of Children in Rural Communities

Instituto de Estudos para o Desinvolvimento(Institute of Development Studies)Obstacles to the Educational Success of YoungChildren

Ministerlo do Trabalho e Seguranca Social(Ministry of Labour and Social Services)Alternative Care and Education for the YoungChild and Family

Following the end of colonial rule, a massive influx of immigrants from the ex-colonies settled in Portugal, especially around Lisbon. Many families fromrural Portugal have also migrated to Lisbon in search of work and betteropportunities. Children growing up in these bidonvilles face survival problemsmore typical of the Th ird World than of Europe. The Ministry is cooperating withthe Foundation in the retraining of its social workers and others to equip themto work with immigrant families, involving family members in para-professional roles. The project focuses on the needs of families with youngchildren and includes women's groups and home-based day-care centresusing grandmothers as care-givers.

Instituto Politecnico de Faro(Polytechnic Institute of Faro, Co!!ege ofEducation)Early Childhood and Community Services in theAlgarve

The people of the hinterland of the Algarve have remained completelyuntouched by the coastal tourist boom. With many young adults leaving thearea in search of work, young children are often brought up by grandparents,facing dismal educational and employment prospects. In response to theseneeds the staff at the Institute's College of Education, in collaboration withother official and voluntary agencies, have created a 'Support Network forChildren and Community Development in the Algarve' (RADIAL) which iscollaborating with the Foundation in a project to meet the needs of childrenand families through the training and development of local human resources

teachers, parents, local leaders, grandparents and siblings.

SPAIN Fundacio Mediterrania(The Mediterranean Foundation)Community Involvement in Early Childhood 1977 10 2,205,500 497,000Education in Andalucia

Antugal: teachers leaindun dulthen can tam)klutz thiough .street play

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

1982 409,900

1983 608,000

1985 618,700 618,700

1985 3 831,000 831,000

1

Spain: a pre-school inCordoba

A seven-year project in three urban areas of southern Spain was successful in Commitmentconverting 'welfare' oriented child care institutions into lively, developmental in Df I.early childhood centres, serving and served by the local community. Thedissemination phase of the project is extending and will adapt the original Initiated Duration Total to Committedexperience of working with para-professionals throughout Spain, particularly December 1984 -1985the southern regions. A small t'am is functioning as a training and de- 1985velopment group.

SWEDEN

Fundacidn General Mediterranea(The General Mediterranean Foundation)Pilot Centre for Rural Education in Galicia 1979 6 1,300,000

Umea Universitet(University of Umea)Multicultural Education for Young Children 1979 8 1,989,500(see Special Report, page 44)

Statens Invandrarverk1 1 1 1(National Board of Immigration)

Early Childhood Education for Refugee and 1985 3 1,375,000 1,375,000Minority Populations

Immigrants and their descendants now constitute one seventh of Sweden'spopulation. Although the responses of Swedish society and institutions havebecome steadily more positive, the pre-school area still faces difficulties incoping with a situation in which children of non-Swedish origin frequently out-number native Swedish children. Refugees have recently been arriving inlarge numoers and their needs have added to the complex problems facingthe authorities and host communities. The project is promoting collaborationbetween teachers, parents, minority organisations and immigrant communi-ties; developing parental skills and providing culturally-sensitive pre-schoolteacher training to enable Swedish teachers to work effectively in multi-cultural settings.

16 4 5

Commitmentin Dfl.

Ir 'doted

UNITED KINGDOM Western Isles Islands Council I

Proisect Muinntir nan Bean 1976(Community Education Project)

Strathclyde Regional Council I

Partnership in Education 1983

Lothian Regional Council I

Craigroyston Community High School Project 1980

University of Bristol I

Parent and Health Visitor Child Development 1979Project

The programme has stimulated professional health visitors to re-think theirattitudes and modes of work. Educational know-how has been introduced intohealth visiting practice which has led to the development of sensitive but non-dominant support by health visitors for parents living in deprived areas,fostering the parents' own skills and raising their self-esteem. Six healthservice authorities have adopted the model and the project's new phase isextending training, materials development and consultation services to afurther five authorities. The identification of volunteer mothers who can betrained to function as para-professional counsellors among their peers, withthe support and guidance of professional health visitors, has emerged as amajor feature of this project.

Community Education Development Centre I

Family Education Unit 1980

University of Aberdeen, Department ofEducationFamily Education for Mothers and YoungChildren

The economy of Abeideen, traditionally dependent on agriculture and fishing,has been transformed by the advent of the oil industry. The social effects of thisinclude a sharp decline in female employment in traditional occupations.Children are growing up in a community that has lost its cohesion and identity.The University of Aberdeen is cooperating with the city authorities in acontrolled intervention within a run-down district. The project will emphasisethe educational development of young children through the support of theirparents and the development of child-related activities planned by theparents with the support of professionals.

6

Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

I I i

10 2,334,700

I I I

3 1,382,000

I I I

6 2,433,700 51,400

I I 1

10 2,457,488 1,558,000

I I

6 1,794,000

I 1 1 1

I

1986 3 1,067,500 1,067,500

Special Report: Israel

Early Childhood and FamilyDevelopment in Morasha

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Morasha is a suburb of Ramat Hasharon,lying between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Built in

the 1950's to house immigrants, manly of NorthAfrican and Middle-Eastern or,bin, Morashafound itself on the wrong side of the gap inIsrael's socio-economic development. Unlikemore prosperous parts of Ramat Hasharon,Morasha bears the symptoms of social malaise:overcrowded housing, alienation among theyoung, low educational levels and a highproportion of multi-problem families.

Morasha's population of 10,000 includes 800families with children aged up to six years.Official social and educational services havenormally been limited to non-working mothersof children aged from birth to three years. Theyconsisted of a well-baby clinic, two day carecentres and a number of kindergartens wherethe conventional welfare role of professionalworkers has prevailed: their very profes-sionalism left parents with a feeling ofinadequacy. Services have been fragmented andlacking in coordination. They have tended toignore problem families and have beenseriously under-utilised. Lack of self-confidencehas discouraged a passive, under-educatedpopulation from making use of availablefacilities.

In 1982 the Foundation joined forces with the

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Dutch Keren Hayesod organisation and ProjectRenewal, a department of the Jewish Agencyconcerned with the social and physicalrehabilitation of run-down urban areas. ProjectRenewal's approach is to stimulate theformation of local groups and to initiateactivities with the aim of generatingautonomous community development. The aimiii Morasha was to develop a programme foryoung children and their families based on theFoundation's accrued experience of projectsworking with children aged from birth to sixyears, particularly in Israel.

Para-professional workers

Local residents - mainly women - have beenrecruited as change agents to help bring aboutimprovements in the existing highly structuredbut ineffective early childhood services. Thetraining of local women as para-professionalearly childhood workers has been at the heartof the project. During the last three years, 100women have participated in four trainingcourses of ten weeks' duration. Drawing on theexperience gained in a Foundation-supportedproject in Ofakim, the training course inMorasha has adapted its content, methodologyand recruitment criteria to meet local needs.The pars- professional woh,-force has pl ;red acatalytic role in stimulating greater parentparticipation, helping to overcome parents'passivity and opening up the professionalservices to community involvement. InMorasha, as in other projects, some issues havenot yet been fully resolved. The esprit de corpsof the para-professional team runs the risk ofbecoming another kind of elitism. Likeprofessionals, these locally-recruited womencould also develop their own biases androutines. The project is acutely conscious ofthese dangers.

`Mother - Teachers' and family day care

One of the primary objectives of the training ofpara-professional workers was the Itnra' - fromthe Hebrew words 'mother-teacher' - homevisiting programme. It was developed to meetthe needs of families with little awareness ofthe stages of children's development or theimportance of stimulation. Para-professionalsmake weekly home visits which centre on playwith the child and discussions of parenting andfamily life problems. By the end of 1985, thehnra programme had already reached morethan 100 families.

Surveys point to specific improvements in theemotional relationships between mothers andchildren, the mothers' self-esteem and theirattitudes towards social and educationalservices.

Family day care centres have also developed onthe basis of para-professional and parentalinvolvement. The project team went from door

The Morasha project and me

by Sued Yonah

When you hear my story you will want toV V join the Imra programme straight away! I

came ,to Israel as a little girl with my parents inthelifties. As soon as we settled I was sent toschool.but'I didn't finish school as my parentsdecided I should get married when I wassixteei.-NOW I've-got five children and for thefirst 22 years of,my marriage, I never went outto work because! always felt that the childrenand the house Were enough.

One day,,by chanceony little girl.breught homea circular froin,her kindergarten announcing thefirst training codiseef!oieMorasha project. Iread the'feireUlki, alid:decided'then and there tosign,tip.,*en':mYi,hilsband,CaMe Koine that6eninitiiiiirtiOi0 'You know,i'm going tojoiithis' training What do-you thinkaboitt;iliattIle,Saiii,%!hY.not,ies'never toolate to:leard.'Thies:typical,Of my husband: healways" helieyes itudyjrig.,

IregiSteredkr,the Ceurse:and,was accep, Ibegan;stUdying:i4SaW,1*itrI'd missed duringill,thOid':yeari;Okstaying tiotrie: iAt,the end ofthechhisef:thOUglit,liereloes;,Pitgo straightback to- itier.disirs;!tke',Children; Mir husband,the houSe",.:BUI:WaS *Ong: They me Iwas accepted. iojwOik, as an Imra counsellor.When I- -told myhusband Pcfbeen accepted hesaid 'I don't want you to go out to work, but ifthat's whatwill make you happy, go ahead'.

So, overnight I changed from being ananonymous housewift, to an Imra home visitorin the neighbourhood. Perhaps you won'tbelieve it but, after living in Morasha for 30years, I suddenly began to discover how little Ireally know about the neighbourhood and itspeople.

to door looking for suitable homes for informalday care which could provide a high qualityeducational environment for infants aged sixmonths to three years. One effect of theestablishment of these family day care centreshas been to encourage more mothers to go outto work. During the first year the percentage ofworking mothers was low. By the third year, 80per cent of the mothers sending their youngchildren to family day care centres wereworking outside the home, benefiting from theproject's intervention with the Ministry ofLabour and Welfare, which agreed to makemothers with low status occupations eligible forday care subsidies. By early 1986 there were13 such family day care centres, each caring fora maximum of six infants. The ratio was delib-erately kept low. While this slightly increasesthe cost, the results justify the project's

4

Milftig115":.

I began to see the difficulties other people !mei,how other children grow up, how the communi'ty functions. I discovered another life outside:Now, after working in the project for threeyears, every day still gives me a good feelingand I can't imagine what it would be like notworking with mothers and children. Thecounsellors are like a big family and I lovecoming to the project office. This year, five ofus have signed up for a course in thepsychology of early childhood at the OpenUniversity, to improve our knowledge. Whowould have believed that we, who were oncejust plain housewives, would be studying at auniversity!

It is great fun to be part of such a project. Itgives so much to the people of theneighbourhood. I really appreciate the peoplewho thought up the project and put it intopractice.

emphasis on quality. The centres are in greatdemand - there is always a waiting list - andregistration at the older, more institutional daycare centres has dropped by 50 per cent.Children attending family day care centres arefound to display more positive, self-directedbehaviour than those in the older centres.

Parental involvement

A further initiative, the pre-school day careprogramme, arose when the parents of infantsattending family day care centres perceived theneed for an educationally stimulating day careprovision for the three to six year olds. Theproject team accepted the parents' request andwon the support of the local council in setting >

,..

up a pre-school day care programme, still at theexperimental stage, which now accommodatesabout 30 children. Parents have been activepartners in developing the curriculum and inthe running of the programme.

The Aleh centre is open three mornings a week,one of which is devoted to a workshop and toy-making. While visiting the Centre, mothersreceive guidance about appropriate toys andgames for their children, according to age.While playing with the children, mothers areencouraged and reinforced by the counsellor. Ifthe counsellor thinks that a problem exists, orthat there is a need for professional counselling,then the mother is referred to a social worker.The services at the Centre are not free andparents are expected to make some contri-bution, according to their circumstances.

The Early Childhood and Family Developmentproject in Morasha has made contact with morethan half the approximately 800 familiesregarded as its `target' population (and has alsoserved a number of families living in otherneighbourhoods of Ramat Hasharon). With astrongly preventive approach, the project hashad a positive effect in terms of behaviouralgains among the children and improved self-esteem among parents (particularly mothers). Amanagement committee, consisting of Morasharesidents, with representatives from ProjectRenewal and local government departments,has worked closely with the project leader.

Project staff have shown considerablecommitment and growing skills. Crucial supportfrom the Mayor and major political groups hasmade the.project a focal point for a number ofofficial service-providing bodies. Having builtup a reputation for developing alternative earlychildhood care and education programmes, thenext step, beginning in 1986, is to take on thechallenge of bringing about changes in theestablished institutions and professional cadresresponsible for services to young children anddisadvantaged families.

Special Report: The Netherlands

Bicultural Education forImmigrant Mothers andChildren

T he number of immigrants in Haarlem is notlarge, about 4,500 out of a total population

of 156,000, but the conditions under which theylive and work are frequently in stark contrast tothose of the host community. Unemploymentamong immigrants is higher than thenational average and those who have workmostly do low-income jobs. They tend to live ininadequate housing and face racial discrimi-nation.

The position of the women is often worse thanthat of the men. In many cases women havecome to The Netherlands only in order toreunite the family. Having grown up in aMuslim culture (Turks and Moroccans) with thetraditions of the extended family and separationof the sexes in public, women are confrontedwith the Western nuclear family and withunfamiliar religions, moral and social valuesand customs. Many of them are from poor ruralareas and quite illiterate. When they arrive inThe Netherlands they have to familiarisethemselves with an urban pattern of life inwhich the ability to read and write is vital. Theyfrequently remain isolated from Dutch societybecause they have no work, or because theywork almost exclusively with compatriots, orbecause their husbands often will not allowthem to leave the house for any reason otherthan going to work. Their jobs are usuallypoorly paid, involving irregular hours or shiftwork. These women carry a heavy load: besidesan often exhausting job outside the house, theyare responsible for keeping the- familiestogether socially and emotionally, frequentlyunder considerable pressure caused by years ofseparation and the strain of immigration.

The immigrant population is a young one -mostly under 45 years of age - and immigrantfamilies tend to be young and large. Becausemany of the mothers have to work outside thehome, their children have to be cared for eitherin centres or in Dutch foster families. As aresult many children grow up with contrastingvalue systems which has an alienating effect onthe parent-child relationship and is damaging tothe child's self-concept. By 1980, about 250Turkish children were fostered with Dutchfamilies in Haarlem, mostly for day care onlybut a good number for day and night care aswell. On the initiative of several Turkish,Moroccan and Dutch women, a Social-

A solo performance at aparty arranged by theImmigraht Women'sCentre

t.,

Educational Centre was set up in 1980 whichwas supported by the Foundation. In 1984 TheImmigrant Women's Centre grew out of theactivities and experiences of this Socio-Educational Centre. It is supported jointly bythe Foundation and the Municipality ofHaarlem.

`You have helped Us a lot, but now we v. ant tostand on our own feet'

The Social-Lucational Centre had concen-trated largely on the problems all partiesexperienced in the day care of Turkish babiesby Dutch families, and had worked to extendopportunities for the overall development ofimmigrant children. Its objectives also includedthe education of parents, particularly themothers, and encouraging the integration ofchildren and parents into Dutch society. Itbecame apparent that the problems connectedwith child-minding for immigrant children wereinseparable from the problems immigrantwomen themselves faced. Improving the waythe children are cared for had to go togetherwith improving the position of their mothers.An educational and training programmesuitable for Turkish and Moroccan women wasdeveloped but the Centre was largely Dutch incharacter and staff organisation. Thus, themuch sought after integration of immigrantwomen tended to result in conformity and theloss of certain elements belonging to theimmigrant women's own cultures. In 1982 anumber of Turkish and Moroccan womenformed their own self-help group and came tothe early conclusion that they needed awomen's centre of their own.

The Immigrant Women's Centre is run not justfor immigrant women but by them. This means

that most of the workers are drawn from theimmigrant community and the Centre's statutesrequire that a majority of the committeemembers are also members of this group. Theserequirements have led to practical problems inThat there are very few women within theTurkish and Moroccan populations in Haarlemwho possess the necessary educationalbackground or experience. The entire operationhas thus been a learning process for allconcerned: the women participating in activitiesorganised by and at the Centre, the womenleading those activities, and the womenresponsible for directing and organising theactivities.

The Centre's objectives are far-reaching andambitious. The general aim is to promote thehealth, independence and self-reliance ofimmigrant women and their families asindividuals and as a group. This means thecreation of possibilities for immigrant womento enjoy and develop their own culture; toprovide them with opportunities to acquiresufficient knowledge, skills, insight andexperience in order to be able to cope witheveryday life and take their proper position insociety; to promote the interests of immigrantwomen and their children as a group as a partof the fight against discrimination; to contributeto the health and growth of the children ofimmigrants in a multi-cultural society by givingsupport to the mothers; to obtain help, adviceand information in order to solve the proh!emswith vihich immigrant women and gills areconfronted.

The activities organised by the Women's Centrefall into three main categories: activities forchildren, educational activities for women, andhelp/information and advice services. Languageclasses provide informal opportunities forinformation and advisory services.

`Some foster-mothers like the child to call them`mama', but the real mothers don't like that'

A major part of activities for children ofimmigrant mothers has been concerned withthe foster-parent project which was carried overfrom the former Social-Educational Centre.There is a lot of demand for this kind of care,partly because of the lack of places in day carecentres but also because of the need forovernight care. Most of the families involvedare Turkish but, during 1985, there were alsochildren from Pakistan, Surinam and Dutchfamilies tieing fostered. The foster-parents areall Dutch. The natural parents concerned areusually working in shifts or irregular hours andmany of them are inadequately housed. By themiddle of 1985, most foster arrangements werefor day and night care, with the children onlygoing home to their parents at weekends. Thechildren were aged up to four years.

The Centre has developed a system whereby acontract is made betweer the two sets ofparents. This includes the times for taking and

fetching children, food requirements orprohibitions, methods of upbringing, how andwhen payments are to be made. The initialcontract is signed by both parties for one monthonly; this is seen as a trial period at the end ofwhich (or during it if necessary) either side canwithdraw. If they decide to continue then acontract is signed for six months. Throughoutthe fostering period the Centre maintains linkswith both sets of parents in order to monitorwhat is happening and iron out any problemswhich may occur. These contacts arc sometimesby telephone or house visits but also throughregular sessions at the Women's Centre. Theseinclude twice weekly drop-in sessions and ameeting for all parents once every threemonths.

Over the years the Centre has developedselection criteria for foster-parents but finds itdifficult to apply them strictly because of theenormous demand. One recurring problem isthe strong emotional tie which developsbetween the Dutch foster-mother and the child,especially in day and night fosteringarrangements. The workers try to insist thatchildren go to their own homes at least everyweekend and encourage friendly contactsbetween the two sets of parents.

`At first the mothers were shy of using the ToyLibrary'

A major objective of the Centre is to enableimmigrant women to acquire knowledge andskills and, to this end, a number of courses areorganised. Many of the women who attend thecourses have young children below school age,and to make it possible for the mothers tolearn, the Centre has a creche which is openwhenever an activity for mothers is running.The children attending are aged up to fouryears and are of many different nationalities. Inthe course of a normal week about 70 childrenuse the crèche but the times and frequency theyare there vary according to what their mothersare doing. Most of the sessions last about twohours and the crèche leaders organise whateveractivities and games are suitable for thechildren attending that particular session.

As a spin-off from the crèche the Centre hasopened a toy library which has graduallybecome very popular, although immigrantmothers were shy of borrowing toys at first.Mothers can borrow toys for two-week periodsand membership of the library is free forwomen using the Centre. Around 70 mothersnow use the toy library regularly, includingfoster-mothers.

`A woman who is illiterate in her own languagetends to believe she cannot learn anything'

Literacy courses in their own languages forTurkish and Moroccan women have formed thebasis for the educational activities organised by

the Women's Centre. This is seen as a criticalstep towards increasing women's self-confidence and ability to cope as well as a steptowards other activities, particularly learningthe Dutch language and practical courses suchas sewing. The literacy courses include not onlybasic reading and writing but also arithmeticand general language development. Many of thecourse materials have been developed by theteachers themselves, who are all women of thesame nationalities as the students. Some of theliteracy courses have been held in a neighbour-hood on the outskirts of Haarlem, others havebeen held at the Women's Centre.

Several Dutch language courses have also beenorganised. These have ranged from a course forwomen illiterate in their own language, to anintensive course run by a local college at theWomen's Centre which was more convenientfor participants because their children werelooked after while they were studying.

Other educational and skills activities haveincluded typing courses which could eventuallylead to a national diploma; a dressmakingcourse run in cooperation with a local fashionschool (which could also lead to a diploma); acourse in learning how to make Moroccanclothes; sewing lessons; knitting-machinelessons; help with school homework; andphysical exercises including gymnastics, aerobicdancing, cycling and swimming.

Discussion groups where the women can dis-cuss and exchange experiences, find solutionsto problems and give each other mutual supporthave been an important activity. A weeklysession held in the morning started with mixednationalities but the majority of participantswere Turkish and it developed into a Turkish-speaking group. This was found to be veryimportant in helping women with theirproblems of isolation because they could justcome to talk without any demands to learnbeing made of them. Later a mixed nationalitygroup started meeting in the evening whichparticipants have named the Winnie Mandelagoup. One of their first activities was to watch avideo about Winnie Mandela which led todiscussion of their own experiences ofdiscrimination in their own countries andracism in The Netherlands.

Among the most popular activities organised atthe Centre have been social gatherings. Therewas a fashion show when the participants in thesewing, dressmaking and knitting classesexhibited what they had made to other users ofthe Centre. At the same time, participants inthe aerobic dancing class demonstrated whatthey had learned. On International Women'sDay, other Dutch women's organisations joinedin the activities. There was a Turkish children'sparty, a party to celebrate the end of Ramadan,a bingo evening, and a first anniversary partywhich coincided with the end of the first courseyear. The Women's Centre not only invited allthe women who used it to these parties but alsotheir husbands and fathers.

Children of manynationalities watching apuppet performance at theCentre

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'We also need the goodwill of the men'

Links have been established with educationalinstitutions for advice and cooperation oncourses being run, while contacts with medical,social and welfare agencies have providedpractical help and information for families whohave come to the Centre seeking solutions toproblems. The Centre has trained staff who canhelp with personal problems and can interpret,both literally and metaphorically, the needs ofthe immigrant families and the official agenciesthey have to deal with. Centre staff alsoparticipate in acti rifles organised on a nationalscale for immigrants and for fostering agencies.

Recruitment of participants has taken variousforms such as the distribution of leaflets, opendays, visits to clubs and neighbourhood centres,advertisements in neighbourhood newspapers,contacts with organisations to whichimmigrants are likely to come, word of mouth,and house visits by workers. These have provedto he the most effective form of recruitment,particularly for Turkish and Moroccan women.It was found that it is necessary to build up arelationship of trust with the woman and herfamily, particularly her husband or older malerelatives. Workers have also visited neighbour-hood centres wher.: men have Dutch languagelessons because they know that many womencan only come to the Centre through thegoodwill of their menfolk and, in some cases,only with their express permission. Workershave also discovered that the more sympatheticmen can influence the others to see their wivesand sisters as equal partners.

The Immigrant Women's Centre has not beenable to do a great deal about the economic andphysical living conditions of this melting pot of

55

nationalities that is not a part of theobjectives but since the beginning of 1984when operations began, the quality of life hasbeen enhanced for a good many of thesefamilies having to exist on the bottom levels ofan affluent western society.

Special Report: Sweden

Multicultural Education forYoung Children

. \'. '

0

Minority communities are vulnerable tomany kinds of disadvantage: economic,

social, cultural and linguistic. Amongindigenous and migrant groups, minority statusis often reflected in high unemployment andlow levels of educational achievement. These inturn affect the community's perceptions of thevalue of their own language and culture. Insuch situations, parents often respond bycommunicating to their children a feeling thatwhat they have - their own values andcultural traditions - are worthless; that the onlyway 'up' is 'out'. These problems of identity,status and value are strongly evident amongpeople of Saamic (Lapp) and Tome ValleyFinnish origin living north of the Arctic Circle.It is in the far north of Sweden that theEducation Department of the University ofUmea has been working since 1979, withFoundation support, to introduce a morepositive attitude to locally spoken languages,history and culture, among parents, teachers,pupils and school authorities.

513

A majority becomes a minority

Numbering about 15,000, Sweden's Saamipeople live mainly in the far north of thecountry, close to Norway, Finland and the USSR.The region's inhabitants also include people ofFinnish origin, who speak Tome Valley Fin-nish - so named because of their proximity tothe Tome River which flows down through themountains and forests of this remote area. Untilthe seventeenth century, the nomadic reindeer-herding Saamis dominated the region butindustrialisation, the development of mining,hydro-electric power, forestry and the growth ofhuman settlements have reduced the naturalpastures needed for reindeer herding. Today theSaamis are a minority in their originalhomelands. Not surprisingly, minority childrenin the comprehensive schools of northernSweden have shown a marked pattern of schoolfailure. Their consistently p 4r attainmentlevels have meant acute disadvantage in gainingaccess to higher education and job opportu-nities. For a century, the northern region hashad the highest unemployment rates in Swedenand a.substantial proportion of the populationdepends on welfare benefits. Developmentpolicy encourages the young and unemployedto migrate southwards. Teachers have beenbrought into the region from the south, to teachthe standard Swedish curriculum and there hasbeen little contact between school, home andcommunity.

'A matter of importance for the whole country'

In 1971 the educational dilemma facing Saamiparents and children was summed up asfollows: '... Liberty in respect of choice ofschools places Saami pa rents in a difficultposition. The children must either attend aschool for nomads and be educated in theirown language and culture, or they must attendan ordinary comprehensive school, whichmeans that they will be largely deprived ofinstruction in Saami language and culture'. Thisassessment was from a report on a researchproject being undertaken by the Institute ofEducation at Umei University. In 1979 theInstitute undertook a project aimed atdeveloping new ways of using the languages,cultures and environments of the people ofnorthern Sweden as positive learning resources.

This approach could help children both to copebetter with the educational demands of thecomprehensive schooi curriculum, and to relatemore positively to their own cultures. Thechallenge was to demonstrate that acommunity-oriented, strongly multiculturalapproach could reverse the pattern of schoolfailure among minority children; that culturaldiversity could become an asset rather than aproblem. This ambitious goal was to be pursuedwithin a centralised educational system whichprides itself on total equality of opportunity,and which explains under-attainment by

4

k.

minority children as the unfortunateconsequence of their parents' persistence inusing their mother tongues, rather than Swedishat home. The best the system could offer wassegregated education for such children. Theproject aimed to prove that all children canbenefit from the experience of learning in amulticultural setting, provided the teacher isskilled and culturally knowledgeable.

Putting these ideas - radical in the Swedishcontext - into practice required a very carefulprocess of consultation and preparation. Theproject team devoted most of the first yearto consulting the interested parties: theeducational authorities, local 'head teacherdistricts', teachers, parents and - mostimportant - representatives of the minoritycommunities themselves. These consultationsled to the selection of three schools whichwere demographically and educationallyrepresentative of northern Sweden, whose headteachers were sympathetic to the project's aimsand where parents and the local community hadexpressed interest.

The three schools selected were in Kiruna, OvreSoppero and 1Cangosfol. *.:iruna, with aSwedish speaking majority, is a mining townand district capital. its iron ore industry is indecline, and there is high unemployment. Thepresence of a Space Centre is reflected in thetown's optimistic slogan 'Kiruna - City of theFuture', but a recent economic symposiumsuggests that Kiruna might be a 'ghost town'within 30 years. Ovre Soppero is a village with a.high proportion of people of Saami origin andan economy dependent on reindeer husbandryand agriculture. Kangosfors, with a mixedSwedish and Tome Valley Finnish population,is mainly agricultural.

The project began work in classes for childrenin the seven to ten years age group. The twofirst -gale teachers in Kiruna spoke onlySwedish. The Ovre Soppero teacher spokeSaami, Tome Valley Finnish and Swedish andthe teacher at Kangosfors spoke Tome ValleyFinnish and Swedish. Through informaltraining and discussion, the four teachersabsorbed the thinking behind the project andcontributed to he formulation of the workplan.They carried out visits to their pupils' homes tolearn in detail about the day-to-day life andculture of the local families. Part-time assistantswere provided so that the teachers could

.devote enough time to out-of-school visits antithe preparation of new subject matter andmaterials. A Saami language specialist and alocal historian were also involved in the team.The home visits and interviews with parentsprovided the teachers - for the first time - withknowledge of the background, languages andinterests of the children and their familiesbefore they entered the school.

Working within the system

From four teachers in 1980, with classestotalling less than 80 children, the project hasexpanded. Today 130 teachers (includingpre-school teachers) and about 1,500 childrenare involved, and more schools are nowshowing interest in joining the project. Theproject is cautious about further expansion:they see the work as an action-research projectto demonstrate the possibilities. Fulldissemination and institutionalisation is theresponsibility of the national and localeducational authorities, not the project team.

Not all the teachers who have joined the projecthave been convinced of its validity fi.em thestart, however. There still remains considerahleprejudice. One teacher, who had years orexperience behind her, said quite frankly ttibtshe was joining the projc ct 'to prove that itwouldn't work', but even st:1 ilas changed herviews after being part of the project for a yearor two, and is now one of its most enthusiasticadvocates.

What is it that distinguishes a 'project class'from the ordinary comprehensive schoolclassroom? Although both use the same basic

curriculum, the differences are significant. Interms of content, the project team has takenevery subject in the standard curriculum and!yoked for local examples - in mathematics,history, geography, social studies and othersubjects. Because teachers participating in theproject are in close touch with parents andother community members, they are able todraw on local knowledge and expertise. All thematerial aspects of local and traditional culture- food, clothing, housing, means of transport,work, handicrafts and cultural activities - areemployed to provide substance and enrichmentof the basic curriculum.

The visitor to a 'project c ass' will noticeimmediately that the children are not distractedby his presence: they are used to parents andother community members coming into theclassroom. Many project teachers have installeda stove and a coffee pot in their class-ooms tohelp visitors feel more at home. The childrenalso make very active use of visits outside theschool. They interview local people, to find outhow life was lived in the past; they compile`oral history' tape recordings through interviewswith old people in the area; they visit localtradesmen, craftsmen and farmers, and theymake full use of local cultural facilities such asthe outdoor museums at Kangosfors andJukkasjarvi, where traditional Saami andSwedish houses, furniture and artefacts aredisplayed. Of course, teachers everywhere taketheir children to museums: the difference isthat project teachers build these visits into theclass work by much more thorough preparationand follow up: these are not `extra - curricular'activities but an essential part of theeducational process.

'Playing with language'

Ordinarily, if the child's home language is notSwedish, the child can receive two hoursteaching a week in a segregated class,conducted in Saami or Tome Valley Finnish, bya special teacher. This has the effect of furtherundermining the minority child's confidence inhis ability to function within the educationalsystem. 'We try to use language in naturalsettings' explains project leader ProfessorHenning Johansson. 'What people have thoughtof as language problems are in fact problems ofsocial attitudes.' The project teachers try to giveeach language spoken by the children in theirclass its own value. If the children visit a localfarm or shop where only Saami is spoken, theSaami speaking children will translate intoSwedish for the benefit of their Swedish-speaking classmates. This helps build up theirconfidence in the value of their own languageand culture and gives them a 'natural'opportunity to practice speaking Swedish. This`playing with language' - as distinct from aformal, bilingual approach - develops children'sconfidence in their use of the languages theyencounter at home and at school.

But does it work?

In 1983, when the project was working inschools in two districts, a careful evaluation ofits effects was undertaken, using the standardtests applied for ten year old children. Theproject had sought to prove that minority

children could attain the same levels as theirpeers, if properly taught, and that theirtraditionally low self-concept could be reversed.The outcomes were highly signiticant. Childrenin project classes, for the first time in theregion, achieved above the level of the rest ofSweden in the most critical area of all -Swedish vocabulary and comprehension. Theyalso approached the national mean forcompetence in mathematics.

The differences between project classes andcontrol classes were significant. The resultscame as no surprise to Johansson: 'It was anatural development. The parents and theteachers understood why the results werebetter. If a child gets out into the communityand is stimulated and encouraged to learn aboutnew things; to study how things around himwork; how people earn their living, thennaturally his vocabulary and his comprehensionwill increase'.

In terms of self-image, children were testedagainst a random sample of non-projectchildren in the region. Their written essays- for example, on how they viewed thefuture -and their drawings, revealed morebalanced attitudes, greater understanding oftheir own and other local cultures and apositive attitude to life in 'depressed' northernSweden which contrasted with the frequentlynegative and unrealistic ideas and self-conceptsof non-project children. Generally speaking,minority children taking part in the projectexceed national norms in terms of Swedishvocabulary; learn to read and write morerapidly; are active readers, using libraries moreoften than their peers; and show skills ofenquiry, self-organisation and independence toa greater extent than children in the traditionalclasses.

Time to influence the whole system

How does Professor Johansson see the future ofthe project?

`Well, we have reached the stage where wehave been able to show that our experiencesfrom the very first four teachers can beapplied in these settings with different childrenin different places in the area. We are nowworking with 130 teachers and pre-schoolteachers. For the future, it is very importantthat we work with school leaders. It is of coursetheir job to disseminate the project to the wholearea. Now we are covering five broad districtsof the County of Norbotten but there are sevenmore districts in the County.

`Pre-school teachers must also be included andthere is a need to influence the in-serviceit-ming of the teachers. Then we also haveserious questions concerning the language. Dueto prejudice, especially against Tome ValleyFinnish and also the Saami language, manyparents, when they come to pre-school orschool with their chil'aren, have a view of their

own language that results from this prejudice.We think that in the future we must dosomething to catch these mothers bac... theyhave their babies in order to be able to try toget them to think about their language andprepare them concerning their language andcultural situation. But that is perhaps a newproject. We cannot manage it within this projectbut it is something we have learned and, oneway or another, we must begin to work withthese ideas.'

In March 1986, Henning Johansson's work inthe project achieved national recognition withthe award of Sweden's highest honour in theeducational field - tie 'Golden Elephant'.Accepting the award, Johansson paid tribute toall those involved with him in the work, andwent on to place the project in its widereducational, cultural and social context: 'Theidea that pei eates ... our work with thechildren is thz.. (their) own background andenvironment is a resource that can be sharedwith others. This may seem a very simple ideabut our experience is that it can be verydifficult indeed for a person who has not givenit a thought before!

`Today, when almost every third pupil has somekind of immigrant background, hardly anybodywho is interested in educational matters canignore the problem of bilingualism.

`In our project we have consciously tried tobase the education on the children's ownbackground, irrespective of what it looks like.This approach implies that teachers and headteachers have to ask themselves what eachchild's background looks like... The teacher and.school discover that knowledge can also befound outside the classroom.

`What have we learned? One thing is that ourpupils learn at least as much as other pupils inschool. Compared with children of the sameage in their home region they perform muchbetter on knowledge tests. We have also foundthat, for example... they read more bookspromoting their linguistic development,compared with the magazines the otherchildren of the same age read.

`There is... a direct link from what seem to besimple end halal aspects of the children'senvirons gent and cultural background to themajor ci..estions of peace, freedom, justice andlove in the world. So this is what our project isactually about!'

Examples of project activities appear on thefollowing pages

Local history comes alive

The day we shot the rapids

hel),foject's imaginative use of local naturalideiii.lititOrY,is,vividly evident in the

.iiii4ife'r.iirbike:SoivernitnitSt of whoseinhabitants °are of Saami origin: Until the'Pitied,hegaii;'.theSChtinilifOyire-Soppero madelittlel4**_-.6fiiii-6iviiaCitginithd;,nor were1441:00 0*:0400444-to,chink of theircustoms' and= as being ofeducatini4ValcieL'

0i/re S;Oppero-les,ona river which was animportant mean-.5;.Of traniport_iii, earlier times.The*hoorcaietaker,iyho also runs the onlyshop* the .:(illtageifis;*:expertcanoesao!soi44982;:w50:00, teadhefat"thefNre'SopperO:S:Ch6o.l.ftY,0634a-geties,otieSSOni,onitionSiorj,_03ACOMAtinieatinn:-Ratheii:444-#1i)on,Miiteriali.tie*OPed:in.StbakhnItii;livhiCh4iere all ihout motorvehicles, trains and airciak She persuaded thecaretaker-to come into her. class to tell thechildren about the-use of canoes on the river.This led to 'rapid shooting' expeditions inwhich the caretaker took groups of children in acanoe over a fastlunnin&stretclrof water. Thechildren, aged-seven and eight, wrotedescriptions of this exciting experience and gottogether to paint a, wall-size picture. A localartist was brought in, not to help with thepainting, but to give the children technical hintson how to depict what they wanted to express.

Until recently the painting was kept in theclassroom but, following requests from localparents, it has been moved into the schooldining hall, which is also used as a communitymeeting place. The pictures show the childrenwho worked on the painting (now aged 11 and12), and a close-up of the canoe, a few of thechildren and the school caretaker guiding thecanoe over the rapids.

in the middle of the 19th century. The registertells us that a woman called Anna Lisa, whowas born in 1853, had been vaccinated; that shewas good at reading (but not very good atcomprehension) and that she moved to Norwayin 1879. The parish priest also recorded, in code,his comments on Anna Lisa's moral character.It seems that, unlike her mother, she had arather poor knowledge of the catechism andattended communion infrequently.

Learning from our ancestors

The farmhouse in Ovre Soppero now belongs tothe local council, which has made it availablefor one of the project's recent initiatives. Withfunds allocated by the authorities, severalunemployed or under-employed villagers havebeen assigned the task of transferring detailsfrom ancient church registers to computerdiskettes, to be supplied to schools as a meansof enriching older pupils' history studies. Thechurch registers contain detailed informationabout local inhabitants of past centuries. In thepicture, Mrs. Gunnel Palo is studying ainicrofiche.ola register for Ovre Soppero parish

The:compilation'of this kind of information isenabling School children who increasingly haveaccess to computers, to make use of local datain their regular classes - mathematics andstatistics, history, social studies and othergeneral subjects. This is an important extensionof the project into the higher grades of thecomprehensive school.

Keeping your feet warm

Mrs. Elise Valkeapad teaches in Kriuna's 'Free-time School' - which is specially run to meetthe needs of children whose parents are at workearly in the morning or in the afternoon whentheir regular schools are closed. Elise, who is ofFinnish origin, is explaining how local peopleutilised dried grass to stuff into their shoes as ameans of keeping their feet warm during thelong Arctic winter. This is one of manyexamples of the kinds of specific detail that theproject has introduced into the children'seducation, increasing their knowledge andvocabulary, stimulating their creativity andbuilding up their respect for their own culturalheritages and those of their classmates.

7

<Vt:A.Y..5 '4: 4

The Programme

Western Hemisphere

he Foundation's earliest involvement in this1 region was in the Caribbean, in the

nineteen-sixties. During the following decade,the programme developed in South Americaand, more recently, in Central America and theUnited States.

Wady 20 per cent of the population of LatinAmerica and the Caribbean are children agedfrom birth to ten years. More than half of thesechildren grow up in conditions of poverty, manysuffering from malnutrition and poor health.The scarcity of educational, health and otherservices characterises both the rural areas andthe growing poverty belts around major cities.

In the Caribbean, the Project for EarlyChildhood Education, in Jamaica, wh:ch beganin 1966, responded to the country's need for atraining and support system for the para-professional teachers working in bask' schools.These community-based pre-schools, whichoriginated in the nineteen-thirties, represent theefforts of parents to provide at leastrudimentary education services for theirchildren, using whatever resources they canmobilise. They also reflect the respect paid toformal education by parents. However, thehighly structured and academically orientededucational system has tended to be regardedas a kind of obstacle race, which has created anemphasis on school readiness' in the pre-schoolsector with which the Foundation has beenmainly concerned. The challenge has been toinject a deeper and more coherent conceptualbasis while building up parents' confidence intheir ability to participate in their ownchildren's education. From the earliest days ofthe Basic School programme, this emphasis onpreparing for life rather than simply prepatingfor school has characterised the Foundation'swork in Jamaica. The Foundation-supportedCentre for Early Childhood Education icEiLi atthe University of the West Indies, Mona,Jamaica, works with the Ministry of Educationand with education authorities throughout theregion, monitoring and supporting initiatives inearly learning. Complementary to the work of(Lc!, is the regional training programme beingdeveloped by Servol (Service Volunteered forAll), a Foundation-supported project inTrinidad and Tobago. The Foundation hascontinued to support early childhood care and

education in Dominica, through a project whichhas recently turned its attention to the needs ofteenage parents and their children. A newproject in the Netherlands Antilles and Arubais concerned with upgrading the quality of careand education for children aged 0 to 4 years,focusing both on institutions and the family.

In South America, the Foundation begansupporting projects in Brazil and Venezuela inthe mid-seventies. These projects focused onthe needs of young children and their familiesin the growing perk -urban shanty-towns ofRecife, in Pernambuco State, and Caracas. Bothprojects concentrated on the development ofnon-conventional modes of pre-schooleducation which addressed the child's totaldevelopment rather than confining themselvesto overcoming school failure. The Caracasproject was one of the first supported by theFoundation to train members of the communityto work as para-professional teacher-aides.

Later in the decade, following an advisory mis-sion, a series of projects was initiated inColombia, aimed at improving the quality andcoverage of the country's pre-school programmeoperated by the National Family WelfareInstitute (ictlF). While working with existing daycare centres, these projects have alsoemphasised the development, in a variety ofsettings, of alternative approaches, particularlycommunity and home based strategies.Involvement in Peru and Argentina began in1979. In Peru, the focus was on the upgrading ofthe quality of the Education Ministry's non-formal, community based pre-schoolprogramr-e, in both urban and rural settings(see Special Report, page 60). In Argentina,projects have been concerned with thedevelopment of home-based early education indepressed urban and rural settings, and theupgrading of primary education.

The Foundation's focus in South America canbe characterised as: the development of low-cost, alternative approaches, which mobilisefamily and comiaunity resources; the improve-ment o: existing services and increasedcoverage through new approaches; an emphasison children's total development, includinghealth and nutrition; and the encouragement ofculturally relevant concepts, practices andmaterials through curriculum developmen,t, thetraining of para-professionals and the re-trainingof conventionally-oriented professionals toenable them to respond to the challenge of non-form 1, community based programmeinitiatives.

The Foundation's work in Central Americabegan in Nicaragua in 1981 where, until theRevolution, very few children had access toorganised care and education at an early age.The Government is testing several experimentalmodels to expand and improve coverage andthe project supported by the Foundation isdemonstr,,ag the feasibility of training locallyrecruited para-professional pre-school teachersto develop low-cost early childhood and parenteducation initiatives in rural areas. These are

.4111*Jamaica

Netherlands Antillesand Aruba

Dominica

and rtTrinidad

Tobao

proving to be sustainable (espite conditions ofinsecurity and difficulty.

In Mexico, where Foundation collaborationwith the Ministry of Public Education began in1984, the challenge has been to evaluate theeffects of expanding the coverage of an existingnational pre-school programme in order tobring it within the reach of non-working womenand their families in the urban barrios, the ruralpoor and indigenous communities.

The Foundation's major work in the UnitedStates got underway in 1979, when the HarvardProject on Human Potential was initiated (seepage 67). In the same year, the University ofAlaska's project among native Indian andEskimo children began work, and this has beenfollowed by two further p-ojects which focus onthe needs of indigenous Hispanic and Indiancommunities, in New Mexico and Colorado. Inthe context of cut-backs in social welfareexpenditures, recession and a growing gapbetween the privileged and the under-privileged, the Foundation's programme in theUnited States has concentrated on those groupsmost vulnerable to social, educational, culturaland material deprivation: indigenous minoritiessuch as Hispanic and Indian communities;teenage in run-down neighbourhoods ofNew York City; educationally-disadvantagedBlack families in the Deep South, and familiesliving in acutely deprived environments such aspublic housing residents in parts of Boston. TheFoundation's focus on the empowerment ofparents and communities to develop their innerresources and to build up individual andcollective consciousness of their ability tosupport their children's development, hascharacterised the programme in the UnitedStates, as elsewhere in the world.

ARGENIINA

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

Consejo General de Education, Provincia del1 1 1Chaco

'Proyecto mEvAL-Resistencia', Curriculum 1981 5 1,372,000Renewal and Re-training tot Elementary SchoolTeachers

Centro de InvestigaciOn y PromotionEducativa y Social (CIPES)(Centre for Research in Educational and SocialDevelopment)Chaco Parent Education Programme

Family-Based Pie-School Programme inMarginal Area.; of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is surrounded by old working-class housing and spon-taneously expanding shanty towns formed by migrants from impoverishedrural areas. Pre-school services are almost non-existent. The project works inexisting 'Compensatory Education Centres' which serve children at risk in the3 to 13 age groups. The project's focus :s on the 4 to 6 year-olds and will equiptheir parents to meet their children's basic needs. Through the training ofmonitors, the project will enrich and strengthen links between the family andthe educational system. Teachers are being trained to work with parents,reinforcing the educational role of the family. Support is also being given tocommunity self-help initiatives, health and nutrition activities.

BRAZIL Prefeitura do Muiicipio de Sao Paulo,Secretaria de Educacao(Municipality of Sao Paulo, EducationDepartment)Training of Adolescents as Para-ProfessionalMonitors for Kindergartens

Although municipal pre-schools in Sao Paulo began in 1935, existing facilitieshave been overwhelmed by the city's mushrooming population growth. Lackof facilities and neglect during the pre-school years (one teacher can beresponsible for as many as 50 children) are reflected in high wastage andrepetition rates in primary schools. In order to improve the quality of pre-school education, the project will train and employ adolescent boys and plcas monitors, to assist kindergarten teachers in Sao Paulo's most deprivedareas. In this way, young people will also develop a greater understanding ofthe needs of young children; an important preparation for parenthood.

Brazil: Sao Paulo

,G1

1979 7 1,443,500

1985 3 935,000 935,000

985 3 ,218,000 1,218,000

Governo do Estado de Pernambuco,Secretaria de Educacao(Pernambuco State, EducatiLl Department)Projeto 'Arco-Ins', Comprehensive Pre-School,Family and Community Programme

Pernambuco is one of Brazil's poorest states. An ear'ier Foundation-supported project in Recife (the Brasilia Teimosa Project) demonstratedalternative ways of providing pre-school education and care to low-incomefamilies through the encouragement of parent participation (for example, inthe preparation of learning materials). The Department of Education is nowdisseminating the 'Brasilia Teimosa' approach in the depressed, interiorregions of the State. The project is concerned to promote strategies that canbe practically applied at local level: teacher re-training and home-based work,training para-professionals in the health, psychological and physicaldevelopment of young children.

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

1984 3 862,500 862,500

Universidade Federal do Parana(Federal University of Parana)Projeto 'Araucana', Non - Formal Pre-School 1985 3 900,700 900,700Programme in a Depressed Urban Area

Despite high unemployment in urban areas, large numbers f migrants fromth3 impoverished rural interior continue to flock to cities such as Curitiba,industrial capital of the State of Parana. The improvised arrangements formeeting the needs of pre-school children developed a decade ago - annexesattached to primary schools and staffed by students are no longer adequate.The University of Parana is developing an alternative approach based onFoundation experience elsewhere, including the Costa Atlantica Project(Colom bia). To extend pre-school coverage, the project will promote the useof alternative facilities such as existing recreational centres, and theinvolvement of para-professional monitors. The project will broaden theeducational provision by including health and nutrition components.

Prefeitura da Cidade do Natal, Secretariada Educacao e Cultura(City of Natal, Department of Education andCulture)Prcjeto 'Reis Magos': Education and Care for thePre-School Child

Of Natal's 87,000 primary school age children, less than a third attend schooland the gap is evell wider for the pre-school group: only 6,000 of the City's30,000 four-to-six year olds receive any kind of service and there are noservices for the under-fours. In the first instance the project aims to upgradeeducation, health and nutrition in existing pre-schools and to improve thehome environment through parent and community involvement. A new centrewill provide direct care to 500 children aged four to six years and, through anoutreach programme, will address the needs of thousands of zero-to-six yearolds. The project includes parent education and a child-to-child componentthrough which older children will be trained to take better care of their youngersiblings.

986 3 759,000 759,000

Governo do Estado de Piaui, Secretaria deEducacaoProjeto 'Poti', Educational Alternatives for Pre- 1985 3 862,500 862,500School Children in a Deprived Urban Area

In Piaui, Brazil's poorest state, the Foundation is cooperating with theEducation Department on a low-cost, community-based approach to earlychildhood and family education. At present, pre-school services in Piaui reachless than ten percent of children in the 0 to 6 age group. The project is locatedin a low-income district of the City of Teresina, along the River Poti, and will

6,V

reach 1,800 young children and their families. Specifically, the project aims toexpand and improve pre-school education by involving parents and othermembers of the community in the development and delivery of services.Professionals and para-professionals will be trained in non-formal ap-proaches, including a parent-education component.

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

Organisation for Rehabilitation and Training(osT), BrazilDistance Education and Vocational Training 1979 4 1,543,000

Universidad PedagOgica Nacional(National Educational University)'El Codito' Parent Education Programme

1 1 1

1978 5 945,000

Universidad del Norte(University of the North)Costa Atlantica Early Childhood Programme 1976

Following the Foundation's Advisory Mission to Colombia in 1976, severaldemonstration projects were set up in different regions. In the Costa At lanticaarea, where conventional approaches had achieved very low coverageamong the estimated 1.5 million children aged 0-8, the University of the Northand the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF), with Foundationsupport, developed an experimental project in the depressed fishing village ofLa Playa. The essential elements of the project were the families, the day carecentre and the community. With professional training and support mothers,and later fathers, were encouraged to participate actively in meeting theeducational, nutritional and health needs of their young children. Under thedissemination phase of the project, the experience and outcome tested in LaPlaya are being brought to six other states in the Atlantic region of Colombia

Centro Internacional de Educacion yDesarrollo Humano (CINDE)(International Centre for Education and HumanDevelopment)Project 'Promesa': Home and Community-BasedEducation

'Promesa' is a response to the acute need for the improvement of health,education, and the environment in an isolated, highly disadvantaged ruralarea on the Pacific coast of Colombia. During the project's initial phase, effortsfocused on home-based early learning activities for pre-school children andtheir parents. The success of the project in the four communities in which itswork began has attracted considerable attention from other organisations.The dissemination phase of the project will enable the Promesa team to workwith these other bodies, through training and the preparation of materials, tomake the technical and organisational experience of Promesa more widelyavailable in Colombia.

12 2,914,600 1,290,000

977 12 3,835,900 1,180,200

Colombia: one of thevillages whew thePromesa' ',mica Isworking

65

Ministerio de Educacion(Ministry of Education)Non-Formal Early Childhood Programme inRural Areas

Detailed operational plan in preparation

DOMINICA

Dominica: dental care isalso part of the pre-schoolproject

JAMAICA

Ministry of Education, Health, Youth andSportsPre-School Education Project

v

University of the West IndiesEstablishment of Low-Cost Resource Centre forSupporting Basic Schools

The Foundation supported an important Project for Early Childhood Education(PECE), to raise the level of Jamaica's Basic Schools, from 1966 to 1972. TheMinistry of Education undertook a large-scale expansion of the PECE model,establishing manpower and infrastructure. A decade later, the Ministry invitedthe Foundation to review the current status of early childhood education inJamaica and an Advisory Mission visited the country in January 1984, uncle"the leadership of Sir Hugh Springer. Following the Mission, it was agreed thatthe Foundation would support an outreach project to upgrade the quality oftraining given to Basic School teachers by developing a national resourcecentre which will train Basic School Supervisors, in turn, to train teachers anddevelop materials.

The Foundation-supportedResource Centre includesa school garden wheretrainees learn to cultivatevegetables. Volunteermothers use the modue toprepare meals for thechildren

Si

boo.aary

Commitmentin DfI.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

1986 3 1,138,500 1,138,500

1977 9 388,500 41,800

I I I

1984 5 645,000 645,000

Ministry of Youth and CommunityDevelopment, and the University of the WestIndiesProgramme for Teenage Mothers and theirChildren

Teenage parenthood is a disturbing feature of the breakdown of traditionalfamily structures in the Caribbean. The social, economic and personal con-sequences for these mothers and for the children themselves are disastrous.The state-assisted Jamaica Women's Bureau has established centres to carefor teenage mothers and mothers-to-be. Low birth-weights, malnutrition andillness are common among these highly disadvantaged infants and there is aneed to provide young mothers with support and education in child-rearing.The project is adding this vital dimension through the establishment of aresource and day care centre in an area with a high proportion of teenageparents. The centre is developing preventive programmes for adolescents inthe area's 35 schools and a local demonstra,ion facility for 30 adolescentmothers and their children.

MEXIC,0 Secretaria de Educacion, Direccion Generalde Educacion Preescolar(Ministry of Educati...-1, Directorate of Pre-SchoolEducation)Non-Formal Pre-School Programme forCulturally Peripheral Communities

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

1985 3 1,051,000 1,051,000

1984 3 1,204,000

Instituto Nacional Indigenista1 1 1(NationalInstitute for Indigenous Peoples)

Early Childhood Education among Indigenous 1986 3 1,223,000 1,223,000

Communities

Detailed operational plan in preparation

NETHERI ANDS Centro pa Desaroyo di Antiyas (cEDE Antiyas)ANTUJS,wd (Centre for the Development of the NetherlandsARUBA Antilles)

Improving Care and Education for the YoungChild

The status of The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba as parts of The Netherlandsand the adoption of Dutch as the official language have insulated the islandsfrom educational developments elsewhere in the Caribbean. Generaleconomic decline is forcing increasing numbers of mothers to seek paidwork. At the same time extended and nuclear families are giving way to oneparent households. Many mothers are themselves children. Their poverty,ignorance and inability to cope with the responsibilities of parenthood meanneglect for their own children at a critical period of their lives. Commercial andother forms of day care provide for only 25 percent of the 0 to 4 year-olds. Theproject will equip professionals in charge of existing facilities with knowledgeof child development and with skills that they can pass on, through training, totheir own staff. Special parenting courses will be held for teenage mothers andmodern curricula, appropriate to the needs of each island, and appropriatelearning materials are being developed.

NICARAGUA Ministerio de EducaciOn(Ministry of Education)Pre-School and Community Education in RuralAreas

56 ,, . 66

1986 3 1,417,900 1,417,900

I

I

1981 7 2,516,400 1,256,400

The first phase of this project was located in six communities in the north-westregion of Nicaragua, where several models for the provision of effective earlychildhood education, at low cost, were established. One of the models usestwo-classroom units staffed on a rotating basis by local mothers trained aspara-professionals, with an extension arm staffed by stuJent volunteers. Thishas emerged as both effective and feasible despite the difficulties of the area.The extension phase of the project, based on recommendations by an Advi-sory Mission, will include refinement of the training courses, better under-standing of the interaction between the centres and the extension workers,who carry out home visits, and the establishment of two further pilot locationswhere living conditions are more tranquil than in the areas involved in the firstphase.

PERU

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

Ministerio de Educacion1 1 1 I(Ministry of Education)

'Proyecto Andahuaylas', Education and Rural 1979 6 2,311,800

DevelopmentI I I i

'Proyecto Ate-Vitarte', Community-Based Pre- 1979 6 1,228,400School Education in Urban Areas

I I i I

National centre for the Training of Professionals 1985 4 1,485,000 1,485,000Working in Non-Formal Pre-School Programmes(see Special Report, page 60)

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO Service Volunteered for All (sEnvow 1 I I I

Regional Training for Professional and Para- 1983 6 963,400professional Pre-School Teachers

UNITED STATES OF University of Alaska 1 I I I

AMERICA Cross-Cultural Learning for Young Families in 1979 6 1,875,110 1,129,100

Alaska

The project has sought to overcome the problems of educational failure whichseverely affect the self-esteem and life chances of native Alaskan children.The project enabled a skilled tutor from the University of Alaska to live in thenative community, working with young mothers to help them develop theirskills and understanding of their own and their children's development. Theextension of the project is involving these mothers in parent developmentwork among approximately 100,000 Indian and Eskimo people. Four teams,each led by a tutor, and in:Auding community leaders, are extending theproject to three further mgions of Alaska. The project's stress on parental andcommunity self-determination has attracted considerable attention. For thefirst time, a parent education programme which recognises the strengths oflocal cultures has been developed.

Committee for Boston Public Housing I I I I

Early Childhood Education and Self-Help 1984 3 1,056,000 1,056,000

Ten per-cent of Boston's people live in publicly-assisted housing schemesand in conditions of serious economic, social and environmental deprivation.Following a Foundation Advisory Mission in 1983, e. project has developedwhich concentrates on meeting the needs of families, many of which areheaded by young mothers, living at or below poverty level. The Family-Com-munity Resource Centre is helping tenants in a growing number of publichousing schemes to set up their own, parent-run early childhood educationactivities through the training of residents mothers, adolescents and seniorcitizens. An experimental kindergarten programme linking professionals andpara-professionals, with the support of the City's School Board, is alsobeing set up in one of the housing schemes. The project is also sponsored bythe Boston Foundation and the City of Boston. Active tenant participation indecision-making at all levels is a significant aspect of this project.

P.1 RR

Commitmentin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -1985

Harvard Graduate School of Education

1985

I I I I

The Realisation of Human Potential 1979 5 3,052,100 192,800

University of New Mexieo, College ofEducationHispanic Family Education Programme 1985 3 1,368,000 1,368,000

New Mexico, despite its rich and diverse cultural history, is materially one ofthe poorest states in the USA. People of Hispanic origin constitute more than37 percent of the population and, among them, estimates of poverty vary from13 to nearly 40 percent. The incidence of high-risk pregnancy among poorHispanic mothers is also very high. The effects of multiple disadvantage onHispanic children prompted the College of Education to set three main goalsfor this project: enhancement of the development of children aged 0 to 5years; improved ability of the educational, health and social services to workwith poor Hispanic communities, and developing the skills and attitudesnecessary for self-help among the families and communities themselves. Theproject has set up a pre-school with close parent involvement, complementedby a home-visiting programme by para-professionals in the most disadvan-taged area of Albuquerque.

Community Studies, Inc.Infant Care and Parent Education for Teenage 1985 3 1,056,100 1,056,100

Parents

More than half a million babies are born to American teenagers each year andthe problem is particularly acute in New York City. The most dramatic increasein the number of single-parent families dependent on welfare has taken placein low-income neighbourhoods such as Harlem and the South Bronx. Mostservices focus narrowly on maternity care and adoption: little attention is paidto the long-term needs of the children or their young parents. The project,located in a High School in the South Bronx, is developing understanding ofthe implications arid responsibilities of parenthood through students' involve-ment in a school-based child care centre. The project has been successful infocusing the attention of policy-makers and the media on possibilities for self-help among teenage parents and has highlighted their evident deire to helpthemselves and their young children, when given the opportunity.

United States: students itynut children's rots andrecord findings on arecord sheet

SA

47-1/4- am=

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ifi

?C'N"' -1111ffill

,

Commementin Dfl.

Initiated Duration Total to CommittedDecember 1984 -19851985

Denver Indian Centre, Inc. I I 1 I

Early Childhood Services for Urbanised 1985 3 1,331.700 1,331,700

American Indians

Denver has one of the USA's highest urban concentrations of Indian people.Nearly 80 percent of Denver's Indian families have incomes below povertylevel and educational achievement is very low. Vulnerability to exploitation (asevident from alcohol and drug abuse) and low self-esteem have destroyedfamily stability. In addition, many young Indian children do not speak Englishas their first language, and knowledge of Indian languages and cultures withinthe educational system is almost non-existent. Coping with these problemsrequires very positive development and education in the early years, yet few ofDenver's young Indian children participate in existing early childhoodprogrammes. The Denver Indian Centre is undertaking a three-pronge,, effortto meet the needs of Indian families and their young children: a demonstrationpreschool; a home-visiting and counselling service and the encouragementof collaboration between the many small organisations concerned with theproblems of Indian families.

Canton Separate School District I 1 1

Canton Early Education Programme 1986 3 693,000

Detailed operational plan in preparation

I

693,000

Federation of Child Care Centres of Alabama I

I 1 I(FOCAL)

Upgrading C):. care Services and Parent 1986 3 1,371,200 1,371,200

Education

Educational and other prospects for Black children throughout Alabama arelow in comparison with those of the children of other ethnic groups ouistde theDeep South. Infant mortality actually rose in Alabama in 1984. Most Blackchildren in Alabama do not complete high school and illiteracy remains high.FOCAL operates a network of 80 centres throughout the State, paid for byparent contributions and diminishing subsidies from the Department of SocialSecurity. The project aims to develop systematic training for parapro-fessional teachers in its centres; develop a curriculum that reflects Blackhistory, culture and attitudes in a positive light; reinforce the basic learningskills of Black children, and train day care operators with the information andskills needed to ensure that they can ob,gin from State authorities thenutritional and medical care to which the children are in fact entitled.

it '..!. Universidad Metropolitana1 1 1(Metropolitan University) I

Alternative, Integrated Pre-School Education 1985 3 1,034,600 1,034,600

A quarter of Venezuela's population are in the 0-6 age group and a third live inurban barrios (shanty towns), below the official poverty level. During thecountry's oil-based prosperity, many early childhood programmes wereinitiated but were characterised by conventional, institution-based andprofessionally-dominated approaches in which the 'beneficiaries' wereneither consulted nor involved. The new project will begin with a carefullyconducted survey in one barrio of Caracas following which local communitymembers will be selected and trained to de ielop pre-school services in anexisting centre, advisory services for mothers, health and nutrition activities.The prevention of child abuse will be an important component of the project.On the basis of experience gained in the pilot phase, the project will developsimilar approaches in six other barrios in Caracas, each with a population ofabout 20,000 people.

SO

Special Report: Peru

Non-formal Early EducationProgramme

Early childhood education in Peru, aselsewhere in Latin America, originated in

private facilities for the children of theprivileged classes, drawing on the ideas ofFroebel, Montessori and others. Pre-schooleducation in Lima, Peru's capital, began in 1930and was closely associated with the church, withthe values of the middle classes and with theneeds of their children. In 1941 the stateassumed responsibility for pre-school educationand the number of pre-schools, teachers andpupils rose rapidly. However, pre-schooleducation in Peru remained irrelevant andunavailable to the vast majority of children whoneeded it most: the malnourished, ill-housedchildren of the rural poor, and of migrants fromthe rural interior who were flocking to the citiesin growing numbers.

A reform in search of a programme

In 1972 the Government introduced a major Ed-ucational Reform, based on a recognition of theneeds of the disadvantaged majority of Peru'schildren. The concept found expression in thePRONOEI - The Non-Formal Early EducationProgramme - which was intended to be an openand flexible system involving the educationalauthorities, the family and the community. The1972 Reform marked Peru's emergence as apioneer in non-formal early childhoodeducation. A number of international agenciesincluding Unicef, USAID and the Bernard vanLeer Foundation became involved in efforts togive concrete expressions to the reform's braveand imaginative goals, and to bring effectiveand relevant early education to , significantproportion of Peru's 4.1 million children aged 0to 6 - especially the 1.7 million aged 3 to 5.However, the whole educational infrastructure- training institutions, curriculum, materialsand the attitudes of the teachers themselves -still reflected a pre-reform approach; heavilypedagogical, standardised and lackingappreciation of the values and cultures of thepoor, particularly of the Indian culture of manyof the children and families supposed to benefitfrom the new initiative.

Ate-Vitarte: a simple proposition?

In 1979 the Foundation oegan supporting anexperiment aimed at developing a non-formal,low-cost early childhood education programmein a collection of poor neighbourhoods, knownas Ate-Vitarte, on the outskirts of Lima. Ate-Vitarte has grown to accommodate immigrantfamilies from rural areas and it typifies theconditions existing in shanty towns throughoutLatin America, with families living in over-crowded shacks or poorly built houses, almostno basic services and with major problems ofhealth, nutrition and sanitation. Unemploymentis high and educational provision, until theadvent of the Foundation-supported project,was almost entirely lacking.

Small pre-school centres were to be establishedin each neighbourhood for the three to fiveyear-old children. The centres - which came tobe known as PRONOEIS, from the name of thenational programme - were to be run by localmothers trained as animadoras. These womenwere to be selected and supervised byprofessional ten* °r-coordinators (docente-coordinadoras). A central resource centre woulddevelop a curriculum sensitive to the needs andculture of the community and provide training.

The PRONOEIS were to be located in existingaccommodation made available by the comm-unity, or specially constructed, with labour andmaterial being contributed by the community.This idea, and the project's emphasis on the keyrole of the volunteer, para-professionalanimadoras, reflected both the Government'sintention to base its new programme oncommunity participation and the existence of atradition of self-help and cooperation in Peru,particularly among Indian communities,deriving from the social structures and way oflife in the mountain villages from which theyhad originated.

Despite the apparent simplicity of the schemeand its relevance to existing traditions, anumber of fundamental problems had to beovercome. Local (and largely male-dominated)leadership structures had to be convinced of theimportance of this kind of education for thethree to five year-olds. Appreciation ofeducation was strong but emphasised theimportance of having children learn to read andwrite: the unstructured, informal, 'learning-through-play' approach proposed by the projecthad little to recommend it. A further difficultyconcerned the central role of the animadoras.The communities and their leaders themselveshad little education and found it difficult tobelieve that any of their number (particularlythe women) could take on teaching roles. Asmall team of professionals set about the task ofconvincing Ate-Vitarte's community leaders ofthe challenging notion that local children andtheir families would benefit from the distinctlynon-formal pre-school education to be offeredat the PRONOEIS and that they themselves couldplay a significant and central role in the

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educational process. The presence of theseprofessionals in a community like Ate-Vitartewas remarkable enough and their persuasivecampaigning in the project's early yearsundoubtedly contributed to its acceptance. Thekey to the process, however, was the animadora.During the first phase of the project (1979 to1982), more than a hundred local mothers weretrained as animadoras and 28 PRoNoEis hadbeen built by the communities of Ate-Vitarteon a voluntary basis. By 1984, 31 PRoNoEts wererunning successfully.

A network of relationships

The animadora was at the heart of the projectbut its growth and success depended on anetwork of relationships. A resource centreprovided training and a base foi the smallprofessional team. The location of the centrewithin the area it was to serve, and close to thepeople, was itself a major innovation. Threelevels of continuing training were established:for the coordinadoras - professional pre-schoolteachers who had to learn not only to manage agroup of eight to twelve PRONOEIS each but alsoto learn how to work closely and in a non-hierarchical manner with the para-professionalanimadoras, the voluntary helpers and thecommunity members and leaders; second.training for the animadoras themselves, and

,

a-r _

third, for the helpers - usually mothers andolder children. A working relationship had to beestablished which would encourage anexchange of cultural and pedagogicalinformation. The project team developed andtested a profile for the selection of potentialanimadoras: they had to be preferably localwomen (as is the case with nearly all Ate-Vitarte's animadoras). They had to be endorsedby the community leaders and they had to beexperienced in looking after young children,either as mothers or as older sisters. The mostimportant qualification was evident motivationand willingness to be trained for the work.Although the national programme, of which theFoundation-supported project was a part, paid asmall allowance to the animadoras, they areessentially volunteers, doing the job for thesake of its benefit to the children and their ownpersonal d ,velopment.

By 1984, when the project's second phaseended, the training of animadoras in Ate-Vitartewas complete and much of the organisationalwork, the planning and the liaison withcommunity leaders previously done by theprofessional team, had been handed over to thelocal volunteers. The PRONOEI idea had been'internalised' by the people of Ate-Vitarte.

70continued page 62

From neighbourhood level to national level.

By 1984 the Ministry of Education requestedthe Foundation to provide further support for aproject which would use the Ate-Vitartetraining and resource centre for national-leveltraining of professional pre-school educators,with the 31 PRONOE1S, which would continue towork as before, serving as field demonstrationcentres.

Within its five year life span, the Ate-Vitarteproject had demonstrated a number of majorresults. Three to five year-old children in adeprived urban shanty town could be providedwith opportunities for intellectual andemotional stitaulation, and social development,on the basis of a non-formal curriculum whichtook their own culture and values as its rawmaterial and starting point. Indeeo, the livelycuriosity and energy of the project children islikely to prove a challenge to the stilltraditionally-oriented primary schools they arenow entering. The project has proved thatpartly-educated women from a marginal anddisadvantaged community can be trained tobecome effective teachers of young childrenand community organisers, winning the supportand respect of the children's mothers and of thecommunity's leaders.

The centre at which the project's smallprofessional team was based, has been trans-formed into a National Training Centre underthe Ministry of Education. Its target isprofessional pre-school educators working inmarginal urban areas throughout Peru who areengaged in non-formal pre-school programmes.Over a four-year period, 120 supervisors, nearly700 teacher-coordinators (most of thoseworking in the non-formal sector) and 240 finalyear students from teacher training colleges arebeing exnosed to the Ate-Vitarte approach andmethodology.

The Ate-Vitarte project has helped people tochange. Formally-trained prnfessionals havelearned how to work effectively with adult para-professional volunteers and community localleaders have learned to respect and rely on thecapacities of their own people; semi-educatedmothers have come to realise that their ownknowledge and experience has a valid con-tribution to make to the development of youngchildren. Parallel to the project's efforts in thefield of early childhood education, adulteducation activities have developed and anawareness of community rights and respon-sibilities has grown in Ate-Vitarte along with anincreased capacity for community action andself-help. Early childhood education has shownhere, as elsewhere, that it can act as a startingpoint for other components of social develop-ment.

Victoria Suarez: 'There are lots ofmothers like me'

In 1980, Mrs. Victoria Suarez - known asVicky among her neighbours and colleagues -

was a twenty-four year-old housewife, themother of three children, living in the house ofher husband's parents in Ate-Vitarte. Animmigrant from the sierra, Peru's mountainousrural hinterland, Vicky was shy and 'conform-ist'. The horizons of her life were bounded bythe four walls of a home that was not even herown. Only partly educated, Vicky seemedtypical of thousands of other women in Lima'ssuburbs and shanty towns. She was a dutifulhousewife, deferring to her husband in allthings, lacking self-confidence and without theslightest notion that she could change even herown life, let alone the lives of others in thecommunity.

But Vicky's life began to change in 1980. Shewas visited by Miss Magaly Jimenez, (teacher-coordinator) from the Non-Formal EarlyChildhood Programme - the PRONOE1. Magalywas looking for a local mother willing tovolunteer to become an animadora, a para-professional pre-school teacher for theneighbourhood's three to six year-old children.Four years later, Vicky recounted herexperiences in a lengthy, unstructuredinterview. What follows are extracts from theinterview in which Vicky describes whatseemingly 'ordinary' and disadvantaged people- especially women - can do to improve thequality of community life and, through thisprocess, transform their own lives.

The interview begins with Vicky's reaction tothe suggestion that she should volunteer tobecome an animadora.

How did you feel when you were chosen to be ananimadora?

I felt scared, I said 'How am I going to teachthem? I am only a housewife educatzd up to thefifth grade.' Besides, I am from the sierra andhere in Lima, people believe that those whocome from the sierra can't hold a responsibleposition. Miss Magaly came just in time. Shespoke to my husband and told him that if Ibecame an animadora it would be for the goodof our children. But I hadn't done thehousework, I hadn't washed the clothes... I saidI wouldn't go. There would be lots of profes-sional teachers there, lots of senoritas laughingat me. But he said 'You have to go. I have saidyes to Miss Magaly on your behalf. I shall doeverything here in the house.'

So I took a dose of courage and started. I wasstill scared when I talked to the mothers whobrought their children to the PRONOEI. I think atfirst they were a little disappointed because

''"Ata--

;;" ."41

:Jo

they.really wanted a senorita to do the teaching,not just a local mother. Only a few childrencame. The mothers said the children only`played' at the PRONOEI. Miss Magaly and Iwondered how we could convince them to sendtheir children. So we held a meeting in whichwe got the mothers to participate as if they werechildren. We prepared several areas - a 'quietarea', a clay-modelling corner, a toys andpuzzles corner, and so on. When the mothersarrived we told them they could sit whereverthey liked. So the mothers started modellingthe clay; then they turned to the jigsaw puzzlesor started drawing. We asked them 'What didyou do tore you started modeling the clay?'The mothers replied 'We thought about whatwe were going to make'. Then they began to getthe idea that children could learn to thinkthrough playing. Once they real sed thatchildren could learn at the PRONOEI, more ofthem began to send their children.

How do you know what a child needs?

Through observation. If there a- .. children inthe quiet corner for instance, they might beplaying but without understanding what it's all

about. That's what I prefer: to work in groups.It enables me to discuss the meaning of whatthey are doing, to link their thinking with theactivity. The same happens in the other`corners' - clay modelling, drawing, or thehome corner. I think the PRONOEI method isvery good. The child can easily accomplishthings. What good would it be if I told himthings that he'll forget later? But if it comes outof him, it's because he's learned it himself. Youobserve and you stimulate.

How did you learn this method?

I learned it at the training course they gave us.At first I said 'Why am I not learning anythinghere?' I expected direct training. The mothersin the support group, who also went fortraining, had the same reaction: why go there ifall the ideas have to come from us? I began toask myself why it was done this way, how was itsupposed to work? Then one day I realised whatthe process meant and I still hold on to thatrealisation: that training enabled us to learnwithout forgetting, ..nd that is how we mustwork with the children.

Tell me about a typical day in your life

I wake the children early because we have tomake the most of all being at home together.After breakfast, I devote myself to them. I teach-them. Sometimes I have to go to school withmy daughter to see how she is doing. When Icome back I have to wash and change quicklyand get to the PRONOEI. While we wait for allthe children to come, we sing or talk together. Iwork from the progr. mme I have planned in myworkbook. If some of them are going to draw,first we talk about what pictures they are goingto do. Then they choose the subject they likebest. The little ones don't draw. They play inthe different corners, but they soon get bored. Ihave to watch out for this and find somematerial so they do something that intereststhem. Before the snack we all wash and dry ourhands. The children take their chairs outside tothe playground. After the snack, everything isbrought inside again and we start on whatevergames I have planned for that day. They runand jump and race through the hanging tyres.After that, we come back inside. I try toprogramme things carefully, especially for theolder children because soon they will be goingto school. We do classification exercises withthem. Others work in groups, modelling clay.Before they go home we talk about their lives,the tasks they do at home to help their parents.Some of them stay and help me cleaning theclassroom, because sometimes the mothers whoare supposed to help don't come.

What do you see as the meaning of yourexperience?

I would never have thought that the person Inow am could have emerged from what I usedto be, or that I would ever start st :dying again.

Tlie 41)0,04: e k

be spread all over the country. Thatis how wecan help our children, who need this kind ofeducation. There are lots of mothers, likemyself, who could do it.

How do you see the future?

I see the future as neither promising nor bad.The cost of living keeps rising but our children;:re not abandoned: they do not lack food. Forthem too, the future is neither promising norbad. As foi my future, I hope I'll get to besomeone some day. I want to help the children- all of them, not just my own. My eldest son,for example, he went to a formal kindergartenand he didn't develop the way my otherchildren did at the PRONOEI. Now he's laggingbehind. I can see, through my own experience,that working at the PRONOEI is good work -work that can be done by mothers even if theydon't have a degree.

l

give to other mothers inCommunities like this?

What I value most is that I've learned how tostand up for myself. All my life I was sohumble. I never spoke to anyone. I had thecapacii, but I didn't know how to use it. Iwould like my children to be. like that, and allthe children at the PRONOEI. In the sierra peoplelive without being able to stand out. Ourparents didn't give us the education we nowgive our children. They treated us with force,with orders. Mothers like me - who are shy,who distrust people - must not be like that. Ifwe find people who want to help us, who giveus aii opportunity, we have to work hard toleave our shyness behind. I always ask themothers to participate in the PRONOEI. 'Come' Isay, 'we shall never shut our doors on you'.

The Programme

The Project on HumanPotential

In1979, The Foundation asked the Harvard

Graduate School of Education to assess thestate of scientific knowledge concerning humanpotential and its realisation. A group of scholarsat Harvard undertook research to explore thenature and realisation of human potential,which included reviews of relevant literature inhistory, philosophy and the natural and socialsciences. One contribution of the proir t hasbeen to reveal the multiple dimens; .is of theproblem and specify them in useful detail. Thefollowing series of statements indicates thenature of this contribution.

1. Humans are endowed with a multiplicity ofcapacities, and nature provides no universalinstructions regarding which ones should bedeveloped and in which manner.

2. Diverse peoples under particular cultural andhistorical conditions recognise differentpersonal capacities as worth realising. Thesecapacities range from athletic prowess andsexual attractiveness to reproductiveperformance, social relationships, moralvirtue and religious piety.

3. intellectual competences, as specified byMultiple Intelligence Theory, are morenumerous and diverse than those selected fordevelopment in the schools of most countries.Thus schools, like other forms of education,represent choices (implicit or explicit) torealise certain potentials and leave othersunde ieloped.

4. At both ilaiividual and population levels, it isimpossible to develop all human potentialitiesto an optimal degree. Selecting some forprimary realisation forecloses thedevelopment of others. It is necessary toknow what will be sacrificed when a policyfor human development is being considered.The trade-offs can include heq1"1, mortality,economic benefits and social st.pports aswell as education per se.

5. The feasibility of policies for humandevelopment must be assessed at the locallevel, where plans are to be implemented.History shows that where programmes aresuccessful by local or external standards,community support and voluntary initiatives

were critical factors in successfulimplementation.

6. The local conditions facilitating success inprogrammes of human development arecultural, psychological and political as much aseconomic. Cultural factors includeindigenous models of personal and groupimprovement that motivate individuals tocommit extra effort, beyond what isrequired, towards the programme's goals.

7. Educational mobilisation is blocked in somecountries by factors like geographicaldispersion, ethnic heterogeneity, andpopulation growth, and it is unlikely that allcountries will reach the same level. Realisticpolicies must make this a basic premise ofanalysis, working with rather than againstexisting patterns for realising culturallydefinea potentials.

8. Educational mobilisation, though oftenregarded as an ideal for human developmenteverywhere, has negative as well as positiveconsequences for human well-being. Theseshould be analysed in local contexts beforepolicies are introduced that might diminishwell-being in the name of realising potential.

9. The realization of human potential is notsimply the acquisition of academic skills, andpersona' well-being is not reducible toobtaining employment and consumer goods -as these are often conceptualised in economicanalyses

10.The mobilisation of a society for therealisation of its population's potentials,however that term is defined, depends onactive community participation of a sort that israre - regardless of the purpose - in certaindeveloping countries.

The first book resulting from the HarvardProject on Human Potential was HowardGardner's Frames of Mind, a study of humanintellectual potentials, published in 1983. IsraelScheffler's OfHuman Potential, published in1985, dealt with the philosophical aspects of theconcept of potential. Human Conditions: TheCultural Basis of Educational Development, byRobert A. LeVine and Merry I. White (1986)offers new models for development based onthe social anthropology of the lifespan and thesocial history of family and school. A fourthvolume, due to appear in 1986, edited by MerryWhite and Susan Pollak, presents a selection ofpapers presented at the project workshops, withauthors from Egypt, India, Japan, Mexico,China and West Africa.

714

...MP, S.,

The Programme

The Network in Action

O ver this period interaction betweenFoundation-supported projects achieved

new levels of maturity. All facets of thenetworking process were in evidence - a majorinternational seminar, two project staffworkshops in The Hague for new projectleaders, a major Advisory Mission to take stockof the lasting accomplishments of a historicFoundation project ten years on and 1 gatheringof senior project leaders for final debriefing andworking out of their commonalities towards theend of their association.

These were the big events. It was also a time ofnumerous small-scale, less publicised networkinterchanges, all generating experienceexchange, widening horizons, building skills.These perhaps do not get the attention theydeserve, yet they have lasting and profoundimpact on projects.

International seminar

To deal first with the flagships, the GranadaSeminar, Spain (June 1984), was another in theFoundation's international series, located forthe first time in Europe. It treated one of theFoundation's major programme concerns inthe nineteen-eighties - the education ofminorities and migrants. Holding the Seminarin Andalucia was, of course, particularlyapt. Andalucia itself is a major source ofmigration to more favoured areas in terms ofemployment, as well as being the home of oneof Spain's indigenous minorities, the gypsies. Inpart at least, the gypsy population is engaged inthe Foundation's Andalucia programme.

The Granada Seminar was, however, an inter-national event. Many other insights were alsobrought to bear on the problems of the young..:hildren and families in communities excludedfrom the development opportunities availableto the mainstream of their societies. TheSeminar's broad conclusion - that the youngchild learns best within its own symbolic world- is not revolutionary, but still powerful in faceof governmerts wedded to the normative andcentralist approach.

Informal workshops

Project staff workshops have acquired a regularannual rhythm. They are in essence initiatoryexercises, bringing new project leaders togetherto share their plans and ambitions, rub upagainst each other and develop an under-standing of the relationship of partnership thatthe Foundation seeks to build. These work-shops, usually informal and as tailor-madeas possible, have liso grown to have animportant role in exposing project staff to theFoundation's Trustees, and indeed vice versa.

Advisory missions

Two advisory missions during the period hadtheir own distinct personalities. In Jamaica theFoundation, together with the Ministry ofEducation, mounted a joint exercise to examinewhat lasting effects there still were ten yearsafter the Project for Early Childhood Education(PECE) had ended. The composition of themission was partly a 'network' matter, ledindeed by a former Trustee, Sir Hugh Springer.The Mission was particularly impressed by thecontinuing dedication and particular characterof PECE- trained Basic School teachers. Theimpact of a project which 1:.,, ;e new ground inin-service training of teachers was still verymuch in evidence.

On a rather different level, in Latin America afirst effort was made at experience-exchange,drawing particularly on the know-how of morewell-established projects to reinforce newerprojects within the system. A first networkadvisory mission was carried out involving onlyproject representatives, in this case projects inColombia and Mexico acting as outsideresources to a restructured Nicaragua project.The link has been maintained since and hasdeveloped into a training arrangement betweenNicaragua and the cINDE project in Colombia inparticular.

National networks

Colombia is evidently in the forefront of manynetworking activities and this also has to betraced to its origins The current Colombianprog:amme in fact began as a network venture,following an advisor) mission to advise theColombian Institute of Family Welfarc on'integrated attention for the child'. A structuredsystem of networking between projects,presided over by Dr. Gabriel Bt. tancur Mejia,formerly Minister of Education, nowConsultant to the Foundation ia Latin America,has been in place since the beginning - theComite de Intercambio Van Leer (c ivn(.), whichhas progressively taken on more tasks ir.promoting and commun eating theFoundation's message, A major event in 1984-1985 was the joint conference with Unesco at

The Foundation'sExecutive DirectorDr. W. H. Welling andMrs. Welling, visiting theCosta At Itintica project inColombia in 1984

cr-

Quirama to target on policy-makers in LatinAmerica. CIVAL has carried this one stagefurther, organising a series of 'micro-seminars'aimed at relevant professionals in Colombianstates where there is no project presence.

South Africa provides a somewhat similarpicture. Projects are widely dispersedthroughout a large country, with its ownproblems of accessibility. They are alsoscattered across the country's ethnic divisionsand little chance, historically, has beenprovided for exchange and skills developmentthrough direct encounter. Annual inter-projectworkshops have been organised for thenetwork, with access for other interestedbodies. Each meeting had a thematic topicrelated to training needs. During this time theworkshops were organised by the EarlyLearning Resource Unit.

This period has also seen some attempts atjoint networking, bringing in this case thenetworks of the Foundation and Uniceftogether in joint meetings around a particulartheme. Two inter-network workshops of thissort were organised for the eastern and westernCaribbean, in Barbados and Jamaica. Themodel is interesting, even though styles aredifferent, and merits further exploration.

Inter-project exchange

As stated at the outset, it is perhaps the small*vents that have the most long termconsultative .npact - German teachers visitingCoventry schools, new Portuguese projectleaders picking up and successfully applyingcurricular and operational ideas from Glasgowand Milan, an emerging Venezuelan projectilluminated by on-going work in a Peruvianbarrio. This dimension is hard to captureaccurately and harder to trace over time. The`big' events inevitably attract more attention atpolicy level. Small cumulative actions maymean more in shaping practice.

710

One effort was made during the period toexploit the intimacy of small-scale networkingand face-to-face exchanges and combine thesewith the policy impact of the major seminar. InSoutheast Asia (Thailand and Malaysia) twonew projects were of special complexity. Anetwork mission was organised to bothcountries, including specialists from Colombia,Kenya and Malaysia itself, working with projectteams in both instances on planning, essentialskills and key aspects of operations andmanagement. The hig noint, demonstratingthe flexibility of network action and itsdetermination to get to grips with real problemsoccurred in the course of the second workshopin Malaysia. In this instance, the networktechnical team decided to abandon the task ofintellectual exchange in midstream and take onthe task, together with members of thecommunity. children and local professionals, oftransforming in two days a run-down local daycare centre, using their accumulated know-how.

Publications

Books published by the Foundation during1984-1985 included Wotnen and Children First(1984), an account of the neighbourhoodeducation project in Liverpool (UnitedKingdom), The Servol Village (1984), whichcontinued the story of a remarkable communitydevelopment organisation in Trinidad andTobago, and Seeking Change (1985), a studybased on the work of the Athlone EarlyLearning Centre in Cape Town, South Africa.Books published or sponsored by theFoundation are the 'tip of the iceberg',however. At the national and local level,Foundation-supported projects continue toproduce technical and other publications,audio-visuals and materials on a wide range ofsubjects under the rubric of early childhoodcare and education.

The clearing-house services of the ProjectResource Centre at the Foundation's office inThe Hague have responded to an increasingvolume of requests for project-basedinformation from within and beyond thenetwork. The Newsletter continues to report onsignificant developments in the field and tooffer pertinent news and comment on a broadrange of issues related to the Foundation'sconcerns.

The Foundation is intensifying its efforts topromote the exchange of relevant project-generated materials as part of its networkingprogramme, and to share the network's wealthof experience with concerned institutions andprofessionals beyond the network.

'Children play witheverything. Inventinggames helps children learnnew things.' From a storybook produced by the non-formal pre-schaal prokctfor culturally peripheralcommunities in Mexico.

Los nirios juegan con todo.Todo es juguete paraellos.Invental juegos ayuda alos rifts a aprender cosasnuevas.

Some examples of materialsproduced by projects

NGAwowiRRA KAPI NGAwA1JGAPwAI-11 viturn AmiwrollkKAPI WGAWA NGARRunu.

THisGs we use log CLEAMW, TieNome

Flom a set of cardswoduc.ed by theAboriginal Training andCultuial lastitute,Australia on the theme'Keeping the house clean'.Another vt is on 'Showingchildren love'.

The Kenya pre-schoolproject is developingbooks at local languageswhich are based on localstories, poems, riddlesand games and which arerelevant to the localenvironment. This extract,from a Swahili languagebook, tells the story ofBakari going hunting for,food.

Bakan yuaongea na mama.

'ef;V:11'

-- f.

Bakan ukingoni

From Coco I, one of aseries of workbookspublished by theAndalucia, project inSpain for children agedthree, four and,,ive, eachwith an accompanying

manual for teachers andparents, On this page fouryear old children areasked 'What are theseobjects? What do they do?Reproduce the noises theymake, colour them in'.

13

Pleasedo not feed me

(I like Mummy'sI milk

best)

4 . 4,, - .A:Atsl z,

A page from Breast-Feeding for Everywomanwhich has been developedby the Early ChildhoodDevelopment Unit. UK. Alarge selection of cartoonsequences has been

produced on variousthemes includinglanguage, health,nutrition, education,cognitive development,social situations, andrecipes.

I.'44','t,'M,ftfA,P,t4iiik."V

I

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Bakal

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Bakan anatia nangano kuyuko ng'ombo

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o . . 0.)::&,:.

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msitunt

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.______ _ ___-----__ __,,..-----...

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Bakal ndant ya mashua

k ,

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re(0

Wilk ,li_ ......

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IM

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c

Wip

/

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amemuua mamba

9A1.

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th '41 0 114Joft

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'I..'3544,4?:,'' ,--1,-......dy. ,,lP

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Bakal amhadithia mama

NI 14.`,": tit, IllikirtTAL. , f.... - , ,k,.. IIK .

Bakal anapigana no mamba

3.

III. Financial Report

Introduction

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is the1 beneficiary shareholder of Royal Packaging

Industries Van Leer BV, the holding company ofthe Van Leer Group of Companies, the sharesand accumulate(' reserves of which are heldwithin the Van Leer entity by the Van LeerGroup Foundation, a separate bod'. TheTrustees of the Bernard van Leer Foundationare as such also Governors of the GroupFoundation and are assigned by thatFoundatior to form the Supervisory Board ofRoyal Packaging Industries Van Leer 13V.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation does not, it-self, hold any assets, nor does it receiveincome other than what is annually maravailable to it by the Van Leer GroupFoundation. By its statutes, the GroupFoundation is required to furnish from itsincome the funds necessary for the Foundationto carry out its activities. The contributionsmade by 'third parties' mentioned in the

Accounts, are additional monies made availableas donations to Foundation-supported projectsby the Van Leer Group of Companies.

When the Foundation's Board of Trusteesapproves a grant to a project, the monies areearmarked for the duration of the project. Onthe basis of this earmarking, the Foundationcommits itself by means of a Letter of Grant, tomaking available the appropriate sum for theproject. Thus the Foundation's Income andExpenditure Accounts show funds reserved forprojects and not actual payments. However, theearmarking of funds by Trustees and thecommitment of funds by a Letter of Grant donot always take place in the same financial year.

The accounts for both 1984 and 1985 show anapparent excess of expenditure over income.This derives from the accumulation of incomenot fully utilised in previous years.

Balance Sheets as at 31 December

1985 1984

ASSETS Dfl. Dfl. Dfl. Dfl.

Van Leer Group Foundationcurrent account 58,319,824 51,720,981

Cash 60,074 31,357

Debtors 41,788 132,709

Fixed Assets 125,415 95,386

Secured Loans 560,550 558,644

59,107,651 52,539,077

LIABILITIES

Project commitments (1) 54,287,744 33,675,843

Provisicn for administrative expenditure (2) 3,279,000 2,804,000

Creditors 393,351 497,746

57,960,095 36,977,589

Excess of assets over liabilities 1,147,556 15,561,488

NET CAPITAL (3)

Nominal Foundation capital 1,000,000 1,000,000

Long term earmarked for fixedassets and loans 685,965 654,030

Reserved for earmarked but not yetcommitted project grants 4,458,800 3,923,800

Excess of earmarking over availablefunds (1985) (4,997,209)

Available for earmarking (1984) 9,983,658

Net capital 1,147,556 15,561,488

'' 1.

Income and Expenditure Accounts

1985 1984

INCOME Dfl Dn.

Allocated by Van Leer Group Foundation 23,000,000 19,214,754

Cancellation of project commitments 596,746 891,159

Miscellaneous income 28,500 55,718

23,535,246 20,161,691

EXPENDITURE

Net commitments for projectsand grants (1) 32,016,789 18,469,301

Administration and Programme Services (2) ;,457,389 4,984,840

37,474,178 23,454,141Excess of expenditure over incomefor the year (13,938,932) (3,292,450)

23,535,246 20,161,691

-72

Notes to the Financial Statement

1985 1084

GENERAL

All items in the financial statement are stated atface value, unless otherwise noted.

Tangible fixed assets are valued at purchasecost after deduction of depreciation at 20% perannum and in 1985 at 33% for electronicequipment.

NOTES ON THE BALANCE SHEETS Dfl. on. Dfl. Dfl.

(1) Project commitments

Balance I January 33,675,843 22,190,157Add:Net commitments for projects and grantsduring the year 32,016,789 18,469,301

65,692,632 40,659,458

Less:Cancellation of commitments 506,746 891,159Project instalments paid 10,898,142 6,092,456

11,404,888 6,983,615

54,287,744 33,675,843

Outstanding payments to projects arescheduled as follows:

1985 18,009,8131986 26,560,211 10,037,611

1987 17,101,019 5,206,8191988 1C,161,500 421,6001989 465,014

54,287,744 33,675,843

(2) Provision for administrative expenditure

An operational reserve equal to half theAdministrative & Programme Services Budgetapproved for the following year.

U./

Notes to the Financial Statement

1985 1984

(3) Net capitalDfl. Dfl.

Balance 31 December 15,561,488 19,223,288Movements:Excess of Expenditure over Income (13,938,932) (3,292,450)Additional provision for AdministrativeExpenditure (475,000) (374,350)

Balance 31 December 1,147,556 15,561,4F8

NOTES ON INCOME ANDEXPENDITURE ACCOUNTS

(1) Net commitments for projects and grants

Total commitment for projects and grantsmonitored by Bernard van Leer Foundation 37,051,938 24,462,682

Less:Commitments met by contributions to projectsby Third Parties 5,035,149 5,993,381

Net commitments Bernard van Leer Foundation 32,016,789 18,469,301

(2) Administration and Programme Services

Administration and General ServicesPersonnel 1,887,928 1,491,703Premises and equipment 493,948 427,351Office expenses 207,233 189,686Miscellaneous and general costs 263,451 271,887

2,852,560 2,380,627

Programme developmentPersonnel 1,280,192 1,183,700Consultants 150,583 147,977Staff Travel 383,697 307,567

1,814,472 1,639,244

Network and Communication ServicesPersonnel 443,449 427,875Network Support 189,672 282,192Documentation and Publications 157,236 254,902

790,357 964,969

Total 5,457,389 4,984,840

Auditors' Report

We have examined the accounts of the Bernardvan Leer Foundation for the years ended31 December, 1985 and 31 December, 1984.

In our opinion, based upon this examinationthe Balance Sheets and the Income andExpenditure Accounts, together with the Notesthereon, give a true and fair view of thefinancial position at 31 December, 1985 and31 December, 1984 and of the results ofoperations for the years then ended.

Moret & Limperg

The Hague,25 July, 1986

"1.

4,

a

1,

,:.

Board of Trustees (1986)

P. Zusman (Israel), Acting Chairman; Professorof Agricultural Economics, Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem

W.W. Cross (United States), President, EssexMachine Works Inc.

M. Geldens (Netherlands), Managing Director,McKinsey & Co. (Benelux)

V. Halberstadt (Netherlands), Professor ofPublic Finance, University of Leiden

J. Kremers (Netherlands), Governor of theProvince of Limburg

L.M. Kretzers (Netherlands), Vice-Chairman,Board of Directors, Dutch State Mines

0. van Leer (Netherlands), Former President,Royal Packaging Industries Van Leer BV

P.J.J. Rich (France), President and CEO, AlcanAluminium (Europe)

I. Samren (Sweden), President and CEO, SASService Partner

Ms. L. I nsinger, Secretary

Programme Administration (1986)

W. H. Welling, Executive Director

G. Betancur Mejia, Consultant for LatinAmerica

D. R. B. Grant, Honorary ConsultantI.E. Mellink, Medical ConsultantY. Pa?, ConsultantH. Philp, Consultant

Office of the Executive Director

R. Z. Swaab, Principal Coordinating OfficerJ. Keuken, Information Speci?listMrs. P. E. Visscher, Executive AssociateMrs. A. A. Bergsma, Liaison Officer

Department of Programme Development andTraining

A. W. Wood, Director of ProgrammesMs H. J. A. Zwitser, Senior Programme

SpecialistD. Mackay, Educational AdviserL. Akkern.ans, Media Adviser

Publications and Media Unit

G. F. Salkeld, Head, Publications and MediaMs R. N. Cohen, Editorial Associate

Department of oject Operations and Resources

N.J. A. van Oudenhoven, Director ofOperations

E. Tonkes, Senior Programme SpecialistMs E. K. Jones, Senior Programme SpecialistH. Schreurs, Senior Programme SpecialistMs K. A. Shordt, First Programme SpecialistMs R. M. R. Swinnen, Programme SpecialistM. J. Mataheru, Programme SpecialistMrs. G. N. Jimenez, Programme Officer

Resources and Information

Ms E, B. Colthoff, Programme Officer