EXPLORE EDEN DAYCARE CENTRE

Eden Daycare Centre is a wonderful place for young children to learn, however, it does need more work and support. Our first project for the school is to equip the building with educational resources. The children sadly do not have access to adequate resources such as exercise books, pens or pencils. As a result, during lessons children’s education will be inhibited due to the lack of paper resulting in no notes being taken and little of the lesson being documented and remembered. In addition, the school is made up of three small class rooms with limited table and chair space for the children to work - therefore, each of the desk spaces are extremely crowded, causing the children to have to sometimes share chairs during lessons. We want to be able to provide the schools with these basic necessities to ensure a smoother, more educational lesson time. Moreover, we believe the children will learn more effectively with the correct resources and learning environment.  

Hygiene at the school is poor, this can be harmful to the children, increasing illness within the school. Therefore there are more children taking days off school due to sickness, and missing out on valuable lesson time. The bathroom in the school contains a pit latrine, which is a host for bacteria as there is no adequate flush or system to remove the waste from the ground below. There is no running water or soap to wash one’s hands, resulting in children going from classrooms to the bathroom and then to mealtimes, without washing their hands. Therefore, Madame Magreth is looking to invest in proper infrastructure such as a flushing toilet, a sink and running water; this can only be done when the funds are available. 

Every day Madame Magreth cooks two meals of porridge for breakfast and a lunch - which usually includes Ugali (a stiff porridge made from maize). From time to time the gas in the stove runs out before there is enough money in the school's budget to buy more. Therefore, Madame has to make an open fire in the playground and spend time cooking on it - this wastes valuable time in which she could be teaching or looking after the children. In addition the smoke collects in the classrooms, which are poorly ventilated, meaning the children have to breath in smoke fumes during lessons. Having a consistent gas supply would be a simple yet important fix ensuring the meals to be made a lot quicker allowing for more playing and teaching with the children. 

Finally, it is vital for young children to be able to have access to games and toys to provide interactive stimulation. This helps to develop their social and spatial skills, which are both extremely important. By equipping their playground with more footballs, skipping ropes or a swing the children could have the opportunity to play in a more interactive playground. 

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Recently we have been exploring the idea of building a chicken coop in the school. This is a sustainable project which will allow for a steady income over time. The main expenses for this project will be building the chicken coop and buying enough chickens to make the cost benefit analysis of this project profitable. If we are able to put this in place it would be incredible for school; Madame Magreth would be able to sell eggs, use them for food or sell the chickens when they get older. The money collected in this project would allow Madame to buy more land. This would be very profitable as currently she is renting the land meaning each month a large sum of money is taken from her bank account. If Madame could raise enough to buy an area of land, then she could own the land instead of paying each month. Furthermore, increasing the area of land allows for more children to attend the school and be educated in a safe and stimulating environment.