Starting Chance

We believe in giving children, living in poverty-stricken communities near Cape Town, South Africa, a starting chance in early childhood education. Our approach is to balance in-service skills transfer and the upgrade of physical infrastructure with the goal of developing sustainable, well-managed educares providing access to stimulating, high-quality learning environments in which children thrive and teachers grow. Our aim is to upgrade educares to meet the stringent criteria for registration with the Department of Social Development. The intensive Starting Chance programme runs over 3 years and aims to translate theory into classroom practice. In year 1 educare teams are introduced to the "Integrated Daily Programme", in year 2 our in-service mentoring and coaching enables implementation of the Integrated Day and internalisation leading to sustainable change takes place during year 3. There are currently 8 pre-schools in the programme and one special needs day centre. Training Teachers in Townships workshops are given once a month. These are attended by 40 to 60 teachers on Saturday mornings. Independent monitoring and evaluation plays a crucial role in the tailored design of our development programme and enables year-on-year progress to be assessed. A baseline assessment on entry to the programme is updated annually through ongoing independent assessment. Starting Chance is supported by a number of South African and international companies, non-profit organisations and by the Friends of Starting Chance. The Friends global network consists of individuals and groups who support our work in a variety of different ways. Some people and groups run local fundraising events in their communities, others donate products they produce and some volunteer their services by providing complementary skills to support training and development. The small size of the Starting Chance team minimises overheads and maximises the benefit that educares receive.