report to investors on the 2012 - 2013 school year€¦ · report to investors on the 2012 - 2013...
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REPORT to INVESTORSon the 2012 - 2013 School Year
Eligible Children in 20 Impoverished Rural Communities: 1300Daily Attendance Rate in Preschool: 80%
Eligible Children in Romania: 120,000Current Daily Attendance Rate: Who Knows?
Photo: Gazeta de Sud
It’s pretty simple:€12 food coupons for a disadvantaged child ensures
Better nutrition at homeBetter attendance in ‘gradinita’
Better concentration in the classroomBetter preparation for primary schoolLower drop-out rates for Romania
september 2013
2013 Core Corporate Funders
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“Everyone knows that education boosts productivity and enlarges opportunities, so it is natural that proposals for reducing inequality emphasize effective education for all. But these proposals are too timid. They ignore or play down the critical gap in skills between advantaged and disadvantaged children that emerges LONG BEFORE THEY ENTER SCHOOL.” James Heckman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, New York Times, Sept 14, 2013 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/lifelines-‐for-‐poor-‐children/?_r=0
OvidiuRo targets the very poorest children – those living in overcrowded, inadequate housing in isolated areas with very limited access to potable water, standard health care, and transportation. In winter, the unemployment rate is close to 100% due to the low need for unskilled labour and the shockingly high illiteracy rate.
Fiecare Copil in Gradinita (“Every Child in Preschool”) is an award-‐winning public-‐private initiative that has been cited by both The Economist1 and the World Bank2 as a model program. Fiecare Copil in Gradinita (FCG) incentivizes impoverished parents, many of whom are Roma 3, to send their 3-‐5 year old children to preschool. Thanks to corporate and individual sponsors, over 1300 children annually benefit from early education AND better nutrition through FCG. OvidiuRo's mission is to help today's disadvantaged children get much further in school than their parents did – by providing a rich early educational environment so they will have a similar skill set at age 6 as their peers.
Without early mental stimulation, disadvantaged children have no chance to catch up to the others – intellectually, economically or socially. Deprived youngsters without early education start school behind, and stay behind – permanently! Early education is positively correlated to higher graduation, higher employment, and lower incarceration rates.
Food coupons, conditional on children’s attendance in preschool, have proven to be a highly effective and efficient tool to stimulate destitute, functionally illiterate parents (average years in school: 4) to bring their young children to gradinita every day. The parents receive €12 in food coupons per month if they take their child to preschool every day4. The local authorities provide the children with appropriate clothes to wear to gradinita and a social worker tracks their health and attendance.
1 The Economist, 21 June 2008 http://www.ovid.ro/wp-‐content/uploads/2011/03/The-‐Economist-‐article-‐June-‐21-‐2008.pdf and The Economist, 16 September 2010 http://www.economist.com/node/17043366 2 Toward an Equal Start: Closing the Early Learning Gap for Roma Children in Eastern Europe, 4 June 2012, The World Bank, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTROMA/Resources/RomaECD_FinalReport.pdf 3 Program eligibility is based on poverty level, not ethnicity. Children qualify based on family income, living conditions, and parents’ education level. 4 Children must attend every day or have an officially excused absence and parents must attend the monthly Parent Day in order to receive food coupons.
© Ruti Alon
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2012-‐2013 SCHOOL YEAR RESULTS 1. RECORD ATTENDANCE OF DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN IN PRESCHOOL (“GRADINITA”)
For monthly attendance in each Fiecare Copil in Gradinita community see: http://www.ovid.ro/en/our-‐results/tabele-‐de-‐prezenta/
2012-‐2013 in numbers: 80% of the 1300 children in the Fiecare Copil in Gradinita program regularly attended preschool 73% of FCG graduates (age 6 and above) regularly attended clasa pregatitoare and first grade ü 1500 children participated in summer “Health Schools” ü 1300 children are better prepared to start primary school when they turn 6 ü 1040 families received supplemental food coupons and developed the habit of bringing children to
preschool every day ü 200 local team members worked on a common community goal: getting the community’s poorest
children in gradinita ü 170 children (2-‐4) and their parents participated in weekly 2-‐hour “prep” sessions – Sotron Doi
© John McConnico
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This graph shows that gradinita attendance peaked in December. The slight decrease in the last three months is due to parents taking their children with them when they leave home for seasonal work. The teacher-‐recorded attendance rates in the graph below show a slight decline in the annual average from 2010 to 2013. This reflects the efforts of OvidiuRo (OvR) to get teachers to keep scrupulous records – by applying sanctions when spot checks detect inaccurate or incomplete reports. Consequently, the teachers’ attendance taking has gotten more accurate over the course of the three years the program has been running. Before the FCG program was instituted in 2010, there was no daily attendance taking so direct comparisons are not available, but teachers consistently report that rarely more than 40% of these children ever attended, and a 2012 World Bank Report5 found that on average, only 37% of Roma children were enrolled in preschool – which says nothing about their actual attendance rates.
5 World Bank, op.cit.
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2. INCREASED PARENT PARTICIPATION IN THEIR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION FCG stimulates poor, uneducated parents to get more involved in their children’s education. First, it gets parents in the habit of bringing their children to preschool every day, regardless of the weather, the children’s mood, the distance, or other chores the parents might consider more important at the moment. A second precondition to receiving food coupons at the end of the month is parent participation in two activities: Parent Day (monthly activity with children and parents) and Parent on Duty (five times a year parents spend an full day assisting the teacher). Food coupons also help impoverished families improve their children’s nutrition at home. Strategic incentives change parents’ ingrained habits about the “right time” to start their children in the education system. 3. HEALTHIER CHILDREN Poor children get sick more often and stay sick longer than middle class kids. This affects their performance in school. GlaxoSmithKline made it possible for OvR to add a health component to FCG by a 3-‐year €150,000 health grant. OvR invited local communities to develop their own projects – as indicated by the particular situation in their locale (e.g., regular medical check-‐ups, mandatory inoculations, emergency medication not available locally, health mediator salaries, health education for both children and parents, or family planning). Nutritious snacks were also provided to children in Sotron Doi and Summer Health School (see below).
4. INCREASED USE OF HUMAN & MATERIAL RESOURCES OvR helps optimize previously underutilized local resources. Weekly School for Moms & Toddlers: Sotron Doi is held once a week in the spring for 2-‐4 year old children and parents who have anxiety about the school environment. In a non-‐threatening, low-‐key setting, children and their parents (usually moms) are given a chance to gradually adjust to the routines of school, so next year it will be easier to adapt to the daily routine. This year 170 children in 11 communities participated in Sotron Doi. Summer “Health School”: With funds from GlaxoSmithKline, OvidiuRo organized 90 summer programs in 14 counties for 1500 children. Two-‐thirds were pre-‐schoolers. In the 13-‐day workshop, children learned about their bodies, benefits of healthy food, and the importance of sports. They reviewed numbers and letters through writing exercises and games and explored their community. Teachers used a workbook designed by OvR’s executive director, Good Morning, Children! in which kids were encouraged to ask questions, find answers, and to work as a team. OvidiuRo provided fresh fruit and vegetables as snacks to the children in Sotron Doi and the summer programs.
First year outcomes: ü 1050 children received vitamins, vaccinations, medicine, medical tests, & transport for advanced care ü 400 children & 380 adults got medical exams during a 5 day medical caravan ü Health mediators were hired by OvR in four communities where there had been none. (The city halls
are due to take over costs in October 2013.) ü Family doctors began to visit children in isolated communities (Hetea, Apold, industrial Vaslui)
© Getty Images
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5. BETTER-‐TRAINED AND EQUIPPED TEACHERS In addition to supporting teachers with educational materials from Legos to refurbished computers, OvR provides in-‐service training opportunities. January FCG Annual Meeting, Bucharest 34 team members (coordinators, teachers, school principals, mayors, school inspectors) met for a 3-‐day conference at the Hilton Hotel (food and accommodations provided pro-‐bono by the Hilton) to discuss outcomes, address on-‐going challenges, set objectives, and observe classes at the American International School. July “Health School” training, Tarlungeni 40 teachers learned to use OvR’s Good Morning, Children! workbook and health curriculum. August Local Coordinators Meeting, Intorsura Buzaului 35 local coordinators, health mediators and family doctors met to plan the new school year and manage the FCG Health Component. August Best Practice Roundup, Predeal: Summer teachers and education specialists met to discuss results and suggest future enhancements. September 20 On-‐site local team trainings in FCG methodology were held to clarify program activities and roles, especially important for integrating new team members.
6. COMMUNITY-‐TAILORED SOLUTIONS
“Some say the Roma issue is a European one, others that it is national. But it is also a very local issue, because it is the local authorities at the municipal and county level that do
the work of social inclusion on the ground.” British Ambassador Martin Harris OvidiuRo works with local authorities and their designated FCG team members to ensure the program runs smoothly – so it has a chance to become an integral part of the local education system – not just a temporary NGO-‐spawned ‘add-‐on’.
DOLJ, Podari A Professional Exchange
Ambassador Harris’s visit to the Podari FCG program in the summer of 2012 led to several benefits for the county. In January, the chairman of the Rotherham, England Municipal Council visited Craiova and Podari. Ambassador Harris wrote on his blog, “I wanted him to see the excellent work that local authorities have been doing on Roma inclusion in partnership with OvidiuRo and to start a conversation on Roma inclusion between local authorities in Romania and the UK, which are both trying to address this challenge.”6 In March, the school principal Marilena Andriescu visited Rotherham as part of a Dolj County delegation. The group spent a day in a settlement of some 3000 Roma comparing employment, education and policing systems of Dolj and Rotherham. Ms. Andriescu was especially impressed by the free school meals for poor children. The Ambassador wrote, “The school had set up breakfast clubs where children – and their parents – could get a good meal before classes begin. Which means the children start the day properly fed, on time, and ready to learn.”
6 http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/martinharris/2013/04/02/roma-‐inclusion-‐in-‐rotherham-‐and-‐romania/
© Alina Seghedi
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COVASNA, Intorsura Buzaului A School Bus
In one of the coldest towns in Romania, the attendance was especially low for the younger Roma children because of the long distance they had to walk from their settlement to the village school. Finally, after a series of meetings, in March, the mayor agreed for the school bus to make a detour in order to bring the children to gradinita. This relatively small step had an immediate impact: attendance among the 3 year olds almost doubled from one day to the next, and remained high for the rest of the school year.
DAMBOVITA, Gura Sutii A New Kindergarten
Three years ago a new kindergarten building was started, but languished for lack of local funds to finish it. In 2012 OvidiuRo contacted GDF Suez to help finance the building’s completion. After GDF Suez came on board, several other companies joined: Dedeman provided construction materials, LaFarge donated 'multibat'; Holcim donated cement and Orange supplied furniture and children’s clothing. Energy Assistance and Distrigaz Confort assisted with electric and heat. Energy Assistance also sent two specialists from Brussels to work on the construction site for two weeks. Extreme poverty qualifies half of the 120 children in Gura Sutii for FCG.
BRASOV, Tarlungeni and COVASNA, Valcele A Medical Caravan
Medical students from Carol Davila University offered free medical exams to children and adults in Araci & Hetea as part of the ‘Together for Rural Health’ project, partially funded by GSK. Consultations were provided in cardiology, gynaecology, paediatrics, ophthalmology, and otolaryngology. Over four days, the 20 medical students and 15 specialists saw 400 children and 380 adults – most of whom rarely make it to the doctor unless their condition is already life threatening. The visiting doctors concluded that the health needs of people in Araci and Hetea were among the worst they had encountered. On the first day, 5 young children were diagnosed with pneumonia. Many children were found to suffer from rickets, intestinal parasites, on-‐going respiratory infections, and poor nutrition. The paediatricians noted that whereas in most communities, out of 20 children seen, 5 would be sick – in Araci, of 20 examined, less than 5 were considered healthy. This year, OvR coordinator will meet regularly with the health mediator and the community doctor to help the families access the recommended medical care.
©Cosmin Bumbut
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2012-‐2013 PUBLIC AWARENESS & FUNDRAISING
There are about 60,000 NGOs in Romania. If you help one project one year and then do something else the next year, you cannot build anything. You have to have long-‐term partnerships.”
Pascal Prigent, GM, GlaxoSmithKline
OvidiuRo works to raise awareness of the importance of early education for Romania’s disadvantaged children – in the business community, in government, and among the public. Our long-‐standing partnerships with AmCham, ProTV, Rompetrol, Hilton (since 2004), Carrefour (since 2006), Raiffeisen (since 2008) and BRD (since 2009) as well as more recent partnerships with Porsche (since 2010), Cargill (since 2011), GlaxoSmithKline, Chevron and GDF Suez (since 2012), have been instrumental in directing attention to the growing education gap in Romania – for which there is currently no national strategic action in place.
1. LOCAL MEDIA EVENTS Last December OvR and Cargill held their second joint media event in Podari, near Craiova, to announce the second year of Cargill’s investment in the community and the results of the first year partnership. Duane Butcher, Deputy Chief of the US Mission in Romania, attended and noted that, “Podari is a small but powerful example of how foreign investments in Romania go beyond financial investments.” The event was reported in national and local media, generating two TV news spots (TVR Craiova & PRO TV) and 13 articles. This was OvR’s 10th local media event of 2012.7
2. “BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE” Organized at Palatul Copiilor under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, this Hollywood-‐style film premiere was attended by the star and director of the highly acclaimed 2013 release, Before Midnight, on June 26th. The event drew attention to the importance of early education “before it’s too late” to make a difference in school outcomes of poor children. OvidiuRo raised 80,000 € for its 2013-‐2014 FCG program and made international news as a result of an Associated Press news release.
A short video about the impact of FCG was shown to the 750 attendees prior to the film screening. http://www.ovid.ro/2013/04/tom-‐wilson-‐video-‐doua-‐minute-‐despre-‐impactul-‐programului-‐fiecare-‐copil-‐in-‐gradinita-‐12-‐aprilie-‐2013/
ProTV, OvidiuRo’s main media partner, broadcast six prime-‐time news spots, two of which were live transmissions from Palatul Copiilor. http://www.ovid.ro/2013/06/ethan-‐hawke-‐si-‐amalia-‐enache-‐live-‐la-‐palatul-‐copiilor/
30 media partners including Forbes, Business Review, Viva, Tango, Romania Libera, PrimaTV, Antena1, and six other channels reported on the event. In all, 250 online articles, 28 print ads, and 30 online banners were generated. The logos of Major Investors in Fiecare Copil in Gradinita were on press ads announcing the event, http://www.elle.ro/news/intalnire-‐cu-‐ethan-‐hawke-‐before-‐its-‐too-‐late-‐317609/
A 35 page Event Book was distributed to attendees and sponsor logos were prominently displayed in the VIP reception slide show and before the movie screening.
Press release: http://www.protv.ro/stiri/iti-‐place-‐ethan-‐hawke-‐spune-‐i-‐fata-‐n-‐fata-‐mergi-‐la-‐premiera-‐before-‐midnight-‐la-‐palatul-‐copiilor-‐ia-‐ti.html
Business Review article: http://business-‐review.eu/featured/before-‐its-‐too-‐late/
7 OvidiuRo welcomes opportunities to jointly organize media events with Major Investors and other core funders.
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3. INCREASING INDIVIDUAL SUPPORT THROUGH ‘DIRECT PENTRU COPII’ “I found out about ‘Direct pentru Copii’ from a friend. It hardly takes any effort to donate 50 lei a month, and
it helps a child go to kindergarten. 50 lei makes no difference for me. But it matters to them.” Loredana Boeru
“I work in a law firm and we're very busy, so it's important to me to give 50 lei a month without any effort. I hope that by participating in this program, I'm creating a better future for all of us.”
Roxana Ionescu
Since 2005, the Romanian corporate sector has been the bedrock of OvidiuRo’s ability to sustain and enhance its services to some of the neediest children in Romania – but as CSR funds have shrunk with the prolonged financial downturn, individual donors have become more and more important to our fundraising and sustenance. The last few years have seen a new crop of civil society leaders emerge who are deeply concerned about Romania’s future, including the ever-‐widening ‘opportunity gap’ between the urban elite and the rural underclasses. We think that asking people to make nominal automatic monthly donations through their online banking or credit card (we call it “Direct pentru Copii”) is the single best way to encourage individuals to develop the habit of donating personally to the causes they care about. SMS drives are an effective way to raise money for a crisis, but they are essentially “impulse sales” – and a poor way to build long-‐term relationships and have accountability to donors. And events, as important as they are, are geared to companies, and they don't really encourage the habit of personal giving. By setting up an automatic monthly bank debit to OvidiuRo, individuals can, almost effortlessly, help sustain the FCG early education programs while we work toward making our successful strategy national policy. 8 See minute 2:30 for testimonials: http://www.ovid.ro/en/2013/04/tom-‐wilson-‐video-‐doua-‐minute-‐despre-‐impactul-‐programului-‐fiecare-‐copil-‐in-‐gradinita-‐12-‐aprilie-‐2013/
4. THE AMBASSADORS’ EARLY EDUCATION INITIATIVE
In January 2013, the second annual meeting of ambassadors to Romania met to get OvidiuRo’s perspective on the situation of the Roma in Romania and to join forces in promoting universal early education as a foundation for a competitive European workforce. Attending the January meeting were the ambassadors to Romania from Austria, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Bulgaria and UK. In May, at the invitation of Ambassador Harris, the Speaker of the British House of Commons, John Bercow (see cover photo), visited Podari to see a successful Roma integration program in action.
Clockwise: Leslie Hawke, Dante Stein, Andreas von Mettenheim (Germany), Øystein Hovdkinn (Norway), Anders Bengtcén (Sweden), Sandra Pralong, and Jean-‐Hubert Lebet (Switzerland) 8 OvidiuRo welcomes the opportunity to present ‘Direct pentru Copii’ to its partners’ employees.
© Johannes Kruse
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SCALING UP ~ TO REACH A CRITICAL MASS OF CHILDREN
Our choice in these difficult economic times is not just whether to spend or cut, but whether to choose knowledge over conventional wisdom. Will we put money in programs that pay off?
Quality early childhood programs for disadvantaged children are not “entitlements” or bottomless wells of social spending. They foster human flourishing and more than pay for themselves in better
education, health and economic outcomes.
James Heckman, New York Times, Sept. 14, 2013
Every school year since September 2010, 1300 or more disadvantaged children have had the benefit of attending gradinita in 20 communities in 11 Romanian counties. Some of these children started clasa pregatitoare on Monday, September 16th, with three years of preschool ‘under their belts’.
This is a wonderful thing – for these 1300 children – but to really make a difference, all severely disadvantaged children in Romania should have 2-‐3 years of preschool. This is essential to make a dent in the education gap between the Romanian urban middle class and the severely undereducated rural and marginalized poor.
To further advance OvidiuRo’s goal of transforming the key elements of Fiecare Copil in Gradinita into national early education policy (and get the Romanian government to take over the cost of food coupons conditional on children’s daily preschool attendance), OvR signed a formal agreement with the Ministry of Education (July 2013). It creates an Early Education Working Group that will “analyze FCG scale-‐up as a basis for ensuring preschool participation of children at risk”. In parallel, OvR advanced in discussions with the Covasna and Sibiu to use county funds to expand the program in their counties starting January 2014 (funds to be made available by application from City Halls). The Cluj County Council has also agreed to allocate public funds to expand the program to 100 more children.
In July, OvidiuRo submitted a proposal to the EEA Grants (“Norwegian Funds”) to scale-‐up in the counties of Brasov, Dambovita and Dolj. If funded, this program would start in 2014 and add two components to FCG: a solid parent education module, and an impact evaluation study.
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OVIDIURO 2012 FINANCIAL SUMMARY
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