EHE Kindergarten is ready…here is how you can help!

Some of the children who will be learning in the KG

1. What is the EHE Kindergarten?  Here in Ethiopia, Kindergarten is required in order to proceed on to 1st Grade.  However, because often times Kindergartens are private, it means that the poor are unable to afford Kindergarten and therefore cannot send their children to 1st Grade when it is time.  Kindergartens have also become a business model where many times the education and care are not of a high quality, but rather it is a business strategy.  Therefore, we are starting our own Kindergarten that will serve the kids enrolled in EHE and provide them with a quality education.

Children will continue to receive Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, all day care, clothing,  medical care, etc.  The Moms will also continue to receive supports as before.   The  only real change so far is that they will now also have an in- house, licensed formal education. 

2.  What Ages will you serve?  At first we will have a Nursery School class (for those age 3 – 4) and a Kindergarten 1 Class (for those ages 4 – 5) .   The children will be required to pass a government mandated exam in order to enter Nursery and then another exam in order to proceed to Kindergarten 1.   Our dream is then to grow the school with the children enrolled in EHE each year by adding another Grade level.  So next year we hope to offer KG 2, then the next year Grade 1 and on and on.

3. How will you staff it? Are you licensed?   Each class will have a Teacher and an Assistant Teacher.  In addition we will have a Head Teacher / Administrator and our support staff (cooks, cleaners, etc.) in addition to a Social Worker and Nurse.  Yes, we are licensed by the Kebele Education Department in addition to our license as an NGO.

4. What about the Day Care? The Day Cares will continue as in the past, except now at age 3 or 4 the children will

Our instructor, Zabesh, who has been giving Pre-KG learning to the Day Care children already.

enter into Nursery School.  It still will be a lot of learning by play, but in addition to formal learning.  It is similar to what we have been doing with education in the Day Care, but now in a formal, licensed way.   At the same time, every time we bump a child up into KG, we’ll fill his or her spot with a new young child  in need of Day Care.  So, this will actually give us more capacity to serve the very vulnerable young children and moms.

5.  What is the Bigger Picture?  The bigger picture is that we’ll now be able to walk a longer way with the families whom we serve.  As the children start to KG, we’ll start to wean the families off of some of the services we provide in order to enable them to stand on their own feet.   This gives us an opportunity to continue to encourage them and provide an education to children, while acknowledging that to continue an intensive intervention for too long could result in dependency.

How Do I Get Involved?  Right now there are 3 primary ways we can use your support.

1. Pray for us as we launch.  We need your prayers.
2. Give a one time donation.  You can help us by giving a personal donation, or better yet help us spread the word through Facebook  and even start your own Giving Campaign towards this work.   By inviting your friends to join in you are helping to prevent orphans and preserve families, while at the same time ensuring that children get a great start to their education.

We have a number of non-budgeted expenses to provide for, such as:

Our Shiny New Sliding Board!

A Merry Go Round waiting for the children.

Your help in buying desks means the kids have a space to work at.