Our Work

WHY?

A staggering 250 million children globally miss out on early childhood development, the majority of whom live in rural communities in the Global South.

Governments, childcare centres, pre-primary all have an essential role in solving this crisis. But the most important and also the most overlooked part of this challenge is parents. Rural children spend 75% of their time at home so it is parents who have the most opportunity to influence their child’s development. Yet the reality is parents struggle to provide quality nurturing care and learning opportunities.

They (wrongly) believe they don’t have adequate resources and skills and don’t realise how important the early years are. There’s a dearth of targeted information and support especially in low-literacy areas. Women - primarily responsible for parenting and already overburdened - bear the brunt of these problems.

A study conducted with over 2,500 parents in rural Ghana found only 13% parents had conducted any form of play or stimulating activity with their child in the past 3 days.

OUR BIG IDEA?

Parents are the sleeping giants.

We transform marginalised parents into valued and active caregivers.

We provide practical, play-based and context-appropriate ideas about ECD to parents at the last-mile, cheaply and at massive scale. They can then take action themselves using their own resources.

93% of parents in our programme have less than 2 years of primary education. They are not paid for their work, nor given materials or infrastructure. But robust evaluation shows that they bring about significant and wide-ranging improvements in their children’s development.

OUR MODEL

Parent-Powered ECD

Mother-run Play Schemes

Up to 40 mothers in each community are trained to run free educational Play Schemes for 3-6 year olds in their communities. Mothers teach in small groups using fun educational games that stimulate learning, improve wellbeing and encourage good hygiene. These take place in and strengthen kindergartens where they exist, or bridge the gap where there is no formal pre-primary.

Learning & Care at Home

Parents are taught fun activities that support whole-child development and that can easily be incorporated into household routines for no cost. Topics include early learning, child health, child safety & protection as well as ideas for parents on wellbeing, life skills, and social norms.

Advancing gender equality

Women shoulder the majority of childcare responsibilities, so it is critical that solutions empower rather than further marginalise, and lift rather than add further demands on their time and energies. Our model reframes parenting as a valued and fulfilling role and reassures mothers that they are capable caregivers and educators regardless of their own education level or lack of resources. At the same time we erode harmful gender norms by increasing fathers’ engagement in childcare.

HOW WE SCALE

Government Delivery

Radio PROGRAMME

Government delivery

Scale through government

We support governments to set-up, run and sustain the programme through their existing systems and resources using a train the trainers approach. We offer a proprietary implementation system paired with a comprehensive support package that includes:

A “train the trainers” curriculum and coaching
Manuals and digital learning tools
Real-time data tracking
Continous content creation and customisation
Policy support
Fundraising and communications

Benefits

Low-cost:

By leveraging the people-power and systems that already exists the model can be sustained at $3 per child per year. 

Adaptable:

We adapt our technical assistance for different government systems, standards and curricula. In Ghana, we support the Ghana Education Service by training district teams to upskill Kindergarten teachers. In Uganda, where no state pre-primary exists, we work through Sub-Counties and Village Health Teams.

Proven results at scale:

We have proven government uptake and fidelity at scale in Ghana and in-progress in Uganda.

Radio PROGRAMME

Scale through radio 

One of the best ways to get information and ideas in to the hands of rural parents is through the radio. Radio is the largest and most trusted form of mass media in most rural areas of Africa. We develop radio scripts that are broadcast in local language and provide practical information and ideas to millions of rural parents about how to provide nurturing care and learning to their children, as well as improve their own health and wellbeing. This includes:

Play Episodes guide parents in making and teaching games and activities that support early learning
Parenting episodes provide practical information and ideas to parents on a range of topics including health & wellbeing, gender, human rights & child development
Live call-in sessions allow parents to ask questions and share feedback

Benefits

Ultra Low-cost:

Reach rural families for less than $0.20 per listener per year.

Highly scalable:

Already reaching 2.4 million parents weekly

Reaches both mums and dads:

Effectively engages fathers, shifting gender norms in parenting.

Easy to adapt to multiple languages.

Will be airing in 29 languages by June 2025

WHAT NEXT?

Proven, holistic, and community-powered ECD at the last-mile is within reach.

Ready to replicate

Our ECD model and scale pathways have been rigorously tested, refined, and proven to be capable of delivery at scale in two countries. We are now ready to replicate.

We plan to expand to two new countries by 2030.

Pioneering new ways of working

The evolving funding landscape means we need to innovate to find new and ever cheaper ways to continue to get ECD to last-mile communities.

We are constantly iterating and optimising to maximise impact and sustainability, reduce costs and increase efficiencies.

We also drive collective action by collaborating, harmonising, and leveraging with other actors through proactively seeking partnerships to share expertise.

PARTNER WITH US