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Early Childhood MattersF

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Culturally or contextually appropriate?

Culture or context: what makes approaches appropriate?

Samenspel: playing/taking action together

And a young child shall lead them

The new community publishing

Motivating in challenging contexts

Early Childhood Matters continues the

Newsletter. It is published three times a year

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Bernard van Leer Foundation

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Jim Smale

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ISSN 1387-9553

Cover photo: Partnership in Learning Project, Kopanang

Consortium (Republic of South Africa)

Photo: Phia van der Watt

Photo inside front cover: Vormingscentrum voor de

Begeleiding van het Jonge Kind (Belgium)

Belgian boy and Turkish mother and child

Photo back cover: COMED (Nigeria)

Children perform the Edo dance

Contents

Culturally or contextually appropriate? 3

Jim Smale

Culture or context: what makes approaches appropriate? 6

Marinde Hurenkamp

Samenspel: playing/taking action together 15

Roel Copier and Marinde Hurenkamp

And a young child shall lead them 20

Sesame Street: Kids For Peace

Zimbabwe: the new community publishing 27

Kathy Bond-Stewart

Motivating in challenging contexts 37

Freda Brock

The consultant combed throughdocumentation about 11 projects thattake into account particular culturalattributes of the communities withwhich they work. These projectsrecognised the importance of culturalrelevance in their approach, in theirmethodologies and in the content ofthe programmes that they developed. Inorder to tease out some of theunderlying similarities and differences,projects that work in a broad spectrum

of quite different settings weredeliberately chosen. The geographicspread covered Australia, Botswana,Malaysia, Guatemala, Argentina,Germany, The Netherlands, the UnitedStates of America, Colombia, and Israeland the Palestinian AutonomousRegion. The chosen projects work withindigenous peoples in their traditionalsettings, with migrants, and in multi-ethnic environments. Some of theprojects operate in areas that can only

be reached by foot or on horseback;others work with migrants inmetropolitan centres like Berlin orRotterdam.

Culture in context

In the article that presents the results ofthese deliberations (page 6) MarindeHurenkamp highlights some of the 11projects in showing that effectiveculturally appropriate approachesmeans mapping the whole context. Thatincludes discovering what the essentialfoci of the work should be, ascribingrelative importance or priority to eachof these, and identifying the kinds ofresources that are available. After thatit’s a question of finding out what

ingredients have to be mixed to producewell – developed and appropriateprogrammes.

To justify this, Marinde Hurenkampexplains how she came to realise that,although it is possible to isolateelements that can be labelled ‘culturallyrelevant’, few of these are uniquelyabout culture. She also saw that allelements that projects acknowledge andwork with are interlinked. Takentogether they represent the particularcontext that determines why the projectis there, what it is doing, and how it isdoing it. To isolate some of these andtry to discuss them out of their contextsis therefore of limited value.

B e r n a r d v a n L e e r Fo u n d a t i o n 3 E a r l y C h i l d h o o d M a t t e r s

Culturally or contextually appropriate?

This edition of Early Childhood Matters is centred on an analysis of culturallyrelevant approaches in early childhood development (ECD) recently undertaken bythe Foundation. A consultant, Marinde Hurenkamp, conducted the analysis inconjunction with a small Working Group of Foundation staff. The broad objectivewas to learn from the accumulated experiences of 11 selected projects, as they arereflected in our archives. One aim was to explore how projects that work in culturally appropriate ways have to pay special attention in their work withchildren and parents to factors such as language, cultural norms, childrearingpractices, familial relationships, and so on. The second aim was to highlight theways in which projects working in different contexts handle relationships betweencultures. The analysis is a subjective reading of hundreds of documents authoredby almost as many people over many years.

To explain this, she uses the analogy of a ‘filter’ and a‘lens’. If you want to look at something through afilter, then you choose the filter that suits yourpurpose – in this case a filter that only allowsculturally appropriate elements to show through.Looking through a lens instead allows you to do twothings: first, to observe the entire picture; andsecond, to tighten your focus and look at gradationsand relationships – gradations in the significance thatis given to any element; and relationships between allelements in a given context.

Common threads

Her article also explores a number of threads thatcommonly recur in projects that work with ethnic orcultural groups, or in multicultural settings. In doingthis, she also the variety of approaches and responsesthat projects demonstrate. One of these threads ischildhood and childrearing. That there aredifferences in the ways in which childhood itself isconceptualised is well understood. What isemphasised here is the fact that, in many cases,childrearing takes place in conditions of change,changes that result from migration, from theencroachment of outside values, or from attempts byan ethnic or cultural group to find a secure placewithin a multicultural society. This implies newcircumstances to which families must adjust,circumstances unfamiliar enough to affect andthreaten – perhaps even damage or destroy – keyareas such as perceptions of children’s places in their

families, traditional practices and values, supportsystems for children and families, and so on.

A second thread is language and culture. (see box onpages 13 and 14) The article acknowledges thatlanguage is one of the fundamental vehicles for thetransmission and sustaining of culture; and showshow all projects stress the importance of the mothertongue. Beyond this, language is often linked to therelationship between minority and majority cultures.Noteworthy here is work of the Peer EducationProgramme in the United States of America thatincludes articulating ‘internalised messages ofoppression’, ‘racial scripting’ and ‘unspoken messages’.In addition, three more of the projects work directlyon issues such as cultural differences, prejudice,discrimination, solidarity and anti-racism.

A third thread is responses to contexts. Looking backas far as the 1970s, a general movement is clear. Thisruns from a community development approach thatconcentrated on ensuring children a healthy physicalenvironment in which to live, to approaches that giveequal weight to the psycho-social needs of childrenand their physical health, nutrition, drinking waterand shelter. The article goes on to stress a widediversity that demonstrates responsiveness to generalproblems such as isolation, while also showing theimpact of local factors.

B e r n a rd v a n L e e r Fo u n d a t i o n 4 E a r l y C h i l d h o o d M a t t e r s

Partnership in Learning Project, Kopanang Consortium (Republic of South Africa)

Photo: Phia van der Watt

To complement Marinde Hurenkamp’s article, I haveincluded articles that go into more depth about theapproaches and work of two of the projects thatMarinde Hurenkamp studied. The first is theSamenspel project based in The Netherlands that hasdeveloped a highly flexible methodology for workingin culturally appropriate ways with children and theirparents. It depends on certain procedures, structuresand bodies of knowledge, but its flexibility derivesfrom the absence of set patterns for either theapproaches or the work itself. The flexibility is suchthat the methodology is successful with specificcultural or ethnic communities, and withmulticultural groups as well. (page 15)

The second article deals with a project that is radicallydifferent from any other included in the analysis. It isthe Sesame Street: Kids for Peace project, a newmember of the famous Sesame Street family oftelevision programmes for young children. It has beendeveloped for Palestinian children and Israeli Jewishand Arabic children, to counter the messages ofdivision and confrontation that they receive every day.The article reviews the complexities involved inproducing programmes that can effectively promoterespect and understanding. (page 20)

To further complement Marinde Hurenkamp'spresentation, I have also included two articles thatextend our understanding of how projects can developculturally and contextually appropriate approaches totheir work.

The first is from Zimbabwe and features the work ofthe Africa Community Publishing and DevelopmentTrust (ACPDT), that specialises in a range ofdevelopment activities under the title of ‘communitypublishing’. Put very simply, this is a combination oftwo concepts: ‘community development’ and‘publishing’. By drawing on ACPDT’s ChiyubunuzyoProgramme, the article shows how it sets out totransform poverty into prosperity in remote, severelypoor areas of Zimbabwe. The core is an integratedeconomic, environmental, social and organisationaldevelopment process. One main strategy iscommunity-based research and writing coupled withthe stimulation of all forms of creativity. (page 27)

The final article is about the Early Learning ResourceUnit (ELRU) in South Africa and its CommunityMotivators project. In multicultural settings that arealso characterised by poverty, impermanence andviolence, the project has found entry points and hassupported communities in identifying people who canwork to develop ECD activities. The article also showshow ELRU meets the training needs of the CommunityMotivators and provides continuing support for theiractivities. (page 37)

The next edition of Early Childhood Matters will bethe first in a series that looks at ‘Effectiveness forwhom?’ We are going to tackle the most difficult areasfirst: how do we know that what we do is effective foryoung children? And what ways do they have of tellingus? The essence of this is finding out what children

really are seeing and thinking; and how they areresponding as they grow and develop in their families,in their pre-schools and their primary schools, withtheir friends and so on. I hope to feature articles thatexplore how children themselves can tell us theirstories. If you have something to contribute in thisarea that is drawn from your work with children, Ilook forward to considering it for publication. ❍

Jim SmaleEditor


Centro Infantil Colibri (Nicaragua)

Photo: Dolores Sandino

Culture or context: what makes approaches

appropriate?

I was asked to undertake a piece of research andanalysis for the Foundation into cultural relevance in earlychildhood development (ECD) approaches. This was to be

based on archive material that the Foundation holds about11 projects. In their respective contexts, these projects were

all concerned with the relationship of children with theirhistory and heritage.

Marinde Hurenkamp

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From reviewing the 11 chosen projects,I felt that I could produce a list of whatseemed to be significant elements in aculturally relevant approach. With thatin mind, a natural grouping of theprojects suggested itself:

- projects for indigenous children(Intelyape-lyape Akaltye EarlyChildhood Project, Australia; Childrenof the Earth/San Child DevelopmentProgramme, Botswana; Lessons Fromthe Countryside, Malaysia; GrowingUp, Malaysia; Niños IndígenasDesplazados, Guatemala; and YachayProgramme Argentina).

- Projects for migrant children/parents(Intercultural Parent Support,Germany; and Samenspel, theNetherlands).

- A project for disadvantagedAfricanAmerican children (PeerEducation Program, USA).

- A project for disadvantaged childrenin an isolated rural area (ChocóHome Learning And CommunityProject, Colombia).

- A television project for Israeli Jewishchildren, Israeli Arabic children andPalestinian children. (Sesame Street:Kids for Peace)

My brief was to identify approaches toECD that reflect cultural values; define inwhich ways these approaches areconsidered effective; describe projectdimensions that constitute culturalrelevance; and formulate a workingdefinition of cultural relevance basedon theoretical and programmaticexperience, that helps place culturalrelevance within a conceptualframework.

Initially I felt that it might be possibleto create a grid or checklist of culturallyrelevant approaches that was drawnfrom the elements identified in theprojects. However, I soon discoveredthat it was impossible to develop acoherent structure that could cover allthe cultural settings that the 11 projectsoperate in. In consultation with aWorking Group of Foundation staffmembers, I therefore abandoned theidea of developing the grid. But we werestill concerned with selecting orisolating cultural elements associatedwith the projects. To attempt this, Iidentified elements that seemed veryobviously ‘cultural’. What I could thensee was that each project appeared tohave specific ingredients that could belabelled culturally relevant, including

indigenous language; kinship andfamily; relationship with the land;heritage and history and gender roles.

After further reflection and discussionswith colleagues, it became clear thatsome of these elements were notnecessarily only culturally relevant. Isaw that some of them were relevant inmany other contexts as well, includingthose in which culture was a centralarea of interest. It was also clear thatnone of them ought to be isolated fromthe context in which a project wasworking – indeed, each of them mightbe better understood in terms of theircontextual relevance. Nevertheless thisarbitrary classification of elementsprovided me with another perspectiveon the subject which was much moresatisfying.

One way to explain this perspective isby using the metaphor of a filter and alens. If you look through a filter thatyou call culturally relevant, then you seeonly culturally relevant elements andyou filter out or eliminate all othersfrom your view. On the other hand, ifyou look through a lens, you seeeverything that it is currently in focusand within the frame of the lens

whether it is culturally relevant or not.You can also move the lens around tocover all the elements that are there,seeing them all in their dynamicrelationships with each other.

I started out by looking through what Ithought was a culturally relevant lensbut I was actually looking through aculturally relevant filter. Once Irecognised that I had used a filterinstead of a lens, I was able to see thatingredients that seem to be cultural, areactually arbitrary but vital elements thatdefine any successful project that isproperly grounded in its context.(See diagram on page 8)

Placing culture in context

The picture that emerged from theFoundation’s archives is that manycommunity-based ECD projects have astrong cultural component. Examplesabound: they can re-establish the rolesof grandparents and elders in childcare; they can develop pre-schoolprovisions that are based on traditionalearly childhood care and educationpractices; they can promotebilingualism in both young childrenand their parents; and they can operate


within wider programmes that may include rescuingand revalidating their cultures, regaining long lostrights, and working towards a coexistence with morepowerful cultural or ethnic groups that is based onmutual respect.

Using the culturally relevant filter singles out andexaggerates such elements whilst looking through alens shows the totality and what is appropriate in thatcontext. It also reveals the relative importance thateach project gives to the cultural elements in itsprogramme. In other words, the lens enables one tosee an element in its context. You can see how aproject is trying to offer the right contextual responsesby taking the child’s environment very seriously. Youcan also see the extent to which it is taking culture as a

wider concept as well. Obvious examples of thisinclude the sorts of culture that can be determined bystress factors in the environment, stress factors thatprecipitate a culture of violence, or a culture of takingrefuge in alcoholism.

The lens also shows you that a culturally relevantproject does not necessarily have to be one that isworking alongside minority ethnic groups. Anobvious example is that of a project working withchildren in a deprived area of a major European cityin which all the children are of one ethnic group. Inthis case, the contextually appropriate approach willtake into account cultural differences that are to dowith poverty – there is such a thing as a culture ofpoverty, a culture that is particular to its context.

Childhood, childrearing, culture and context

From the documentation available, immensevariations in conceptualisations of childhood, and inchildrearing practices and beliefs become clear. Whatis most striking in this respect is that childrearing inmany projects takes place in conditions of change. Anobvious example is that of migrant families from ruralareas of Turkey now living in a suburb of a majorEuropean city such as Berlin or Rotterdam – a focusfor the Intercultural Parent Support project inGermany and a major focus for the Samenspel projectin The Netherlands. In the new environment, much ofthe support that families could depend on in theiroriginal environment is now missing. In addition, thefamilies’ practices and values may contrast with thosefound in the new environment; while parents maylack some of the knowledge and skills necessary tofunction well.

The Children of the Earth project in the CentralKgalagadi Game Reserve in Botswana is for Basarwachildren and their families whose traditional lands –and therefore livelihoods – are under threat. Studyingthe work of the project shows just what can be lostwhen traditional contexts shift or changes. For manycenturies, Basarwa children have been raised to live intheir traditional environment – the desert. They havebeen socialised and educated through listening, oftentaking part in every aspect of everyday life; and theyhave learned the tools or workings of their society in avery natural and unforced way from a very early age.


CONTEXTUALLY RELEVANT LENS

Profound Research

Anti-bias

approach

Relation with the land

Future &

survival

Softening of

transitionAlcohol

education

Kinship &

Family

Heritage Spirituality

Contextual Filter

Cultural Filter

Children who now attend school may lose all of thisbecause the schools do not cover such areas at all, nevermind in these ways. Some Basarwa children inevitablydrop out of school, partly because of clashes between whatthe schools offer and what the children need and expectfrom the schools. Schools also tend to be hierarchicalwhereas the Basarwa society is highly egalitarian; while, ingeneral, the environment in which Basarwa children liveand develop is not taken into account by the schools.

To counter this, the project encourages the beneficialtraditional elements in childrearing, and has developedparent/child playgroups or mother/child groups that arealternative platforms for discussion of family problems,health, nutrition and childrearing practices. In thesegroups the parents can take an active role in educating andcaring for their children under the guidance of trainedpeople. Parents are encouraged to gather the children, playwith them, tell them stories and engage the grandparentsin the revival of traditional teaching songs. At the sametime, people are relaxed, their way of dealing with theplaygroups is intrinsic to how they live, curriculum andtime schedules are not significant for them, and their wayis relatively informal and flexible.

In general, the context includes an element of attemptingto impose formality on the part of the dominant culturehere that clashes with the Basarwa’s own ways oforganising. Basarwa people have had to learn to deal withthis whilst not losing the values that are important tothem. That means learning how to work with professionalpeople who are in positions of power or authority over

their children, something that would be unnecessary if theBasarwa themselves had control over the schools.

Children who have experienced pre-school programmesthat are rooted in their cultures will one day have to relateto the formal education system – something that allprojects acknowledge as crucially important. SomeMalaysian pre-schools and schools represent a break fromindigenous culture and are often located far away so thatchildren are physically far from their family and socialniches. This led to the establishment of the pre-schools ofLessons From The Countryside and Growing Up projects.These are rural projects based on a recognition thatindigenous rural school children do not cope well in mainstream schools, many of them eventually running away ordropping out. The roots of the failure do not pertain tothe children but to the system as it currently exists. Theresponse is a range of indigenous people preparing theirchildren for primary school on their own terms, and – toovercome major problems of performance and retention –helping children to cope emotionally with the formalschool system. Learning about school culture, and culturalcontinuity are key elements of the pre-school programme.

Study of the Foundation’s archives about the NiñosIndígenas Desplazados project for displaced children andtheir families in a marginalised area of Guatemala, revealsa blend of culturally/contextually determined approachesand widely accepted child development ideas. Parents,promotoras and the community are all involved; andcreative development and specific psychosocial needs ofthe children are given great importance, while playing and


Children of the Earth project (Botswana)

Father and sons

Photo: Matthias Hofer

laughing help children cope withexperiences of violence and exile. Thepre-school programme also encourageschildren to express feelings andexperiences (including experiencesabout war and hunger) through games,story-telling, painting, drawing, theatre,making sculptures and masks, and soon. Beyond this, children are seen asmessengers who contribute to thegeneral dynamics of the community;

and there’s a sense in which they largelydetermine their own environment, or atleast are very active participants in thisprocess.

Responding to context

Reviewing the ways in which projectshave responded to, and been shaped by,the contexts in which they operate, widediversity is clear. The Chocó Home

Learning and Community Project inColombia started in the 1970s, workingfor and with a distinct ethnic group –Colombians of African descent. It is setin a remote, rural, poor area and hasalways aimed to create better chancesfor children via an integratedprogramme of communitydevelopment that included health,nutrition, sanitation, adult literacy,employment, and so on. With this went

more direct child developmentactivities. The project’s view was thatconcentrating only on the cognitivedevelopment of young children – thecurrent thinking at the time it began –was insufficient and even irresponsible:children also have to have a healthyphysical environment in which to live.Chocó is an early example ofrecognising that the psycho-social needsof children and their mental well being– influenced greatly by play – are asimportant as their physical wellbeing.

The Intercultural Parent Supportproject in Berlin, Germany is anextension of a programme for newmothers in Germany to include Turkishmigrant families. The major questionsthat arose during the preparation stageof this extension were about traditionalvalues and their place in a new context.For example, ‘What do Turkish parentsregard as a well-raised child?’Responding to these, the project studiedand analysed individual aspects ofTurkish migrant family life. The studiesshow that people did not feel they knewenough about early childhooddevelopmental processes and manyTurkish mothers expressed the need to


Children of the Earth project (Botswana)

Children eating field food

Photo: Hessel Visser

know more. In the case of values, Saygi – respect andregard for others – is still an educational priority; andthe general view is ‘I want my child to become adecent person’. German families on the other handgave more importance to independence and self-reliance.

Another perspective that the project accommodatedcame from those Turkish parents who had themselvesgrown up in Germany: they had many criticalcomments about their own childhood experiences.For example: parents who as children suffered physicalpunishment and close control over their behaviour,often tried to encourage their children’s ability to takeindividual and independent decisions.

In many projects, racism is recognised – at least tacitly– as a significant element in the developmentenvironment of children, and is seen as somethingthat has to be dealt with. The Peer Education Programin Alabama in the United States of America aims topromote a curriculum that serves AfricanAmericanchildren, reflects their history and culture, andreinforces their basic learning skills. The flexible ‘PeerEd’ model is a culturally sensitive form of attitudinaltraining for parents, child caregivers andadministrators in which they aim to free themselvesfrom internalised oppression. Becoming aware of theirinternal sense of inferiority or superiority is anindispensable part of creating a stimulatingenvironment for the growth of AfricanAmericanchildren. The programme reflects a high level of

attention to age appropriate learning materials, theuse of AfricanAmerican cultural materials; andindividual creativity and expression.

Going one step further, a joint Israeli-Palestinian teamproduces locally made versions of the famous SesameStreet television series to tackle cultural/nationaldivision. Each episode contains segments in bothArabic and Hebrew. There is also a secondprogramme made in Arabic, with some Hebrewsegments. The programmes have separate names:Rechov Sumsum in Hebrew; and Shara’a Sumsum inArabic. Recognising that television is a majorinfluence on children in this culturally volatile setting,the producers have set out to support the healthydevelopment of children. That means maintaining astrong focus on such universals as mental, social,emotional and physical growth; and also exposingchildren to the cultures they encounter, breaking

down stereotypes, and helping to developunderstanding and respect for others. (see page 20)

Conclusions

In general, each of the studies shows that beingeffective – producing worthwhile outcomes forchildren – means finding out what ingredients have tobe mixed to produce well-developed and appropriateprogrammes. That means mapping the whole context,an exercise that reveals the essential foci of the work,ascribes relative importance or priority to each ofthese foci, and identifies the kinds of resources thatare available.

Projects that include a focus on culture facecomplexities in their conceptualisation and operation,something that is compounded by the fact that manyare set in particularly demanding contexts. However,

Intelyape-lyape Akaltye Early Childhood Project (Australia)

My family

Child Labour and Resilience (Bolivia)

Threshing wheat

Photo: Edwin Milán Arias

as Robert Myers points out there are many potentialadvantages in environments that may be labelled‘disadvantaged’ or that are set in complicated contexts;something that clearly applies in the disadvantagedindigenous or cultural communities that feature in thesecase studies. These advantages include:

-multiple caretaking, by adults and older siblings, providesan opportunity for children to learn from several people.

-Opportunities for learning through participation in workand ritual activity.

-An environment providing space and many local materialsthat can be used for learning.

-A rich cultural heritage of toys, games, songs and storiesthat can provide a basis for learning.

-Training in language comprehension and sensitivity tonon-verbal signs.

-Emphasis on social solidarity and harmony, and physicaland emotional ties.* ❍

*Myers R (1992) The twelve who survive - strengtheningprogrammes of early childhood development in the ThirdWorld; Routledge, London/New York.

The work and achievements of some of the projects featured inthis article have been recorded in the Foundation’s WorkingPapers in ECD and the ECD Practice and Reflections series. Apublications list and order form is enclosed with this editionof Early Childhood Matters or is available from theFoundation at the address shown on the inside and backcovers.


Language is one of the fundamental vehicles fortransmitting and sustaining culture. In almost everyone of the 11 projects, language is linked to therelationship between minority and majority culture.However, the ways in which projects deal with bridgingthe gap between minority and majority languagevaries. According to a study based on experiences inmulticultural education in Europe conducted byVedder, multicultural education in childcare centrescan be divided into four distinct models:

1. the adjustment model that tries to adjust immigrantchildren to the majority way of life/culture, ignoringtheir cultural background;2. the transition model that has the same objective buttries to ease transition from the home culture to theculture of the centre;3. the contact model that aims to facilitate contactbetween children from different cultural backgrounds;and4. the cultural change model that aims to create a newculture in which all valuable practices from differentcultures are combined.*

A comparison between the case studies and Vedder’swork reveals that various aspects and ideas are usedfrom these models; and that none of the modelsexactly matches what is actually done by the 11projects. Vedder concludes that working with goalsfrom different models is not a problem, provided thatthe models do not conflict. However, none of these 11

projects fits any one of the models. This does notmean that certain aspects of these models do not playa role in the selected projects, because they all take intoaccount that other cultures exist. Themes like culturaldifferences, prejudice, discrimination, solidarity andanti-racism are an explicit part of the philosophy ofthe Intelyape-lyape Akaltye, Peer Education Program,Sesame Street: Kids For Peace and Samenspel projects.

The goals of bilingualism or multilingualism

Samenspel in The Netherlands is for children betweentwo and four years of age – a crucial age for thedevelopment of language. The project believes in thekey importance of supporting the development ofchildren’s mother tongues first and avoiding emphasison acquiring the language of the majority – Dutch.

Language and culture

Intelyape-lyape Akaltye Early Childhood Project (Australia)

Veronica Dobson with a traditional teaching aid about the seasons

(continues on page 14)

The working language of the project istherefore the mother tongue language ofthe particular group involved. Therationale for this is that children whohave a good command of their mothertongue will rapidly and easily acquire asecond language as they need to; and thatchildren who hear their languagevalidated will have greater confidence intheir culture and in themselves as mothertongue speakers. (see page 15)

The Intelyape-lyape Akaltye, Children OfThe Earth and Niños IndígenasDesplazados projects stress the positiveimportance and status of the mothertongue. This is because of the criticalimportance of language in shaping howyou think, how you perceive, how yourespond. They are less concerned withwhat might be called the preventivefunctions of bilingualism – its functionin promoting understanding betweendifferent groups, for example. In theLessons From the Countryside, GrowingUp and Children of the Earth projects,using the children’s mother tongue is ameans of bridging the transfer fromhome/community to the schools thatmany children attend, many of which areboarding schools. Neither Lessons Fromthe Countryside nor Growing Up arevery explicit about the role of indigenous

languages because the languages are stillin active use and spoken on a wide scale.However, both organisations incorporatelocal languages in pre-school curricula.Language seems a more natural part ofthe general struggle of minority culturesin the Niños Indígenas Desplazadosproject. One piece of work is a perfectexample of not only keeping traditionsalive but also of supporting the symbolicand logical functions of language. This isthe production of ‘Morral de Cuentos’(Story Sack) multilingual collection ofstories and songs in Spanish, Ixil, MayaK’iche, and Mam from the popular oraltradition.

Bilingual education is not a primaryobjective of the Sesame Street: Kids forPeace project although each programmecontains elements of both Arabic andHebrew. The use of both languages inparts of each programme is a means oftransmitting messages of respect andunderstanding and is a vital element ofintroducing Israeli, Arab and Palestinianchildren to each other’s culturalsimilarities and differences. Language canbe a barrier or a bridge – in the MiddleEast, it can even be seen as the voice ofthe enemy. These productions try tobreak down the ‘demonisation’ of theother, showing that Arabic and Hebrew

are rich languages that are learnable andcan open the door to new people, newcultures and new friendships. Theprogrammes teach children not onlytheir native tongue but also theirneighbour’s tongue, starting with 3,000language elements that are nearlyidentical in both languages.(see page 20)

In order to prevent tension, SesameStreet: Kids For Peace refrains fromexplicitly relating language to politicalissues. This is in contrast to the Arrerntechildren who are taught to use Arrernteas a critical tool, or the Peer EducationProgram where language for the African-American child means articulating‘internalised messages of oppression’. ThePeer Education Programme developed acurriculum that identifies ‘racialscripting’ as an ‘unspoken message’. Bymaking these notions verbal, the projectseeks to mobilise the local community toinfluence state policy.

The Elternbriefe (parents’ letters) of theIntercultural Parent Support project arebilingual. However, this has nothing todo with the cultural survival of theTurkish community or with introducingTurkish and German parents to eachother’s languages. Obviously Turkish is

most effective in speaking to manyTurkish parents if the aim is to affectbehaviour. However, it is more complexthan that. The target group isheterogeneous and includes people froma variety of origins, among them thosewho have been brought up in Germany.That means giving careful considerationto the nature of the Turkish employed:while German is more appropriate forsome. Even the fact that the bilingualletters exist is considered important: itshows that someone has thoughtcarefully about the needs of minoritygroup parents.

In general, the issue of language is one ofthe most remarkable elements in allselected projects. Although theapproaches are strongly related to thecontext, they are all based on the premisethat speaking to children and parents intheir mother tongue is highly effective inmaking them feel more confident, bothemotionally and socially.

* Vedder P, Bouwer E, et al (1996)Multicultural Child Care; MultilingualMatters Ltd; Clevedon, Philadelphia(USA), Adelaide (Australia).


Samenspel: playing/taking action together

Roel Copier and Marinde Hurenkamp

The Samenspel Op Maat organisation in The Netherlands promotes grouporiented work with children and theirparents. It focuses on development stimulation for children and educational support for parents. The organisation’sgoal is both the prevention of development delays and the improvement of developmental opportunities for familiesin vulnerable situations. It operates the Samenspel project that has developed a methodology for work with childrenand their parents in disadvantaged situations that allows the development of context specific, flexible programmes.It is because of this that it is successful with cultural or ethnic communities – Moroccan, Turkish, Dutch and so on –

and with multicultural groups as well.

Parents (mostly women) and youngchildren engage in play activities underexperienced guidance in small weeklyplaygroups. The pre-school play-leaders who work with them are sup-plied with a set of guidelines and astructure so they can generate activitiesthat will support the development ofyoung children. A real connection with

the daily lives of the parents andchildren is essential and it is theresponsibility of the playleaders todiscover what is wanted and to make sure that it happens. In this way, the programme is always linked to the actual, everyday questions,needs and problems of parents andchildren.

One striking feature of the Samenspelapproach is that, although it is usedwith families from a number ofdifferent countries, it does notprescribe particular approaches forparticular cultural groups – there isn’ta ‘Turkish’ approach, or a ‘Moroccan’approach or a ‘Dutch’ approach.Instead, the approach to any group

depends on discovering who the peopleare who make up the group, and onfinding out from those people whatthey want and need. That might meanthat work actually does start withplaygroups made up of people fromjust one country. But that may simplybe because the women in these groupsare emerging from their homes for the


first time and need a safe and familiarenvironment. Thereafter, the Samenspelapproach allows things to evolve naturally.For example, those same women may soonwant to become members of a multiculturalgroup.

One core principle of the Samenspelapproach is experiential learning: everyonehas an innate ability to learn so Samenspelcreates possibilities for exploration,experimentation, watching and learning. Atthe same time, parents are offered educationalsupport and information. A second coreprinciple is the recognition that parentspossess an expertise and strength of their ownthat should be recognised, valued andstimulated.

The starting point is always meeting the needsof parents and children, while the thread thatlinks everything together is stimulatingdevelopment.

Creative playleaders

Two playleaders supervise each Samenspelplaygroup for migrant families – one isDutch speaking, the other speaks the mothertongue of the parents and children. It isessential that participants can identify with a

playleader with the same culturalbackground. In many cases the workinglanguage of the playgroup is the mothertongue. However, this is complemented withopportunities for children to pick up someDutch: for example, a song may be sung inthe original language and then repeated inDutch. In general, playleaders and mothersconstantly work together to find the rightways forward in all areas of the playgroupactivities. Samenspel playleaders havecreativity, flexibility and expertise; andSamenspel believes that these count for muchmore than any number of certificates.

A number of mothers who started out asSamenspel participants have becomeplayleaders of new Samenspel playgroups;and, in general, Samenspel often functions asa starting point for women to explore theirown possibilities. They may move on to basicadult education and later, on to furthervocational courses. In other words, they breakthrough their isolation.

Key aspects of the Samenspel approach

While it is possible to list key aspects of theSamenspel approach, this does not convey thesense of the whole experience. However, theseare some of the most important elements.

Samenspel (The Netherlands)

Photo: Ruud Peijnenburg


- Meticulous research on the cultural backgroundwas a first step.

- Total respect for differences and diversity,cultural identity, the mother tongue and theDutch language.

- The concept is simple but there is flexibility tomeet the needs of the parents and the children.

- Essential connections are made between peopleand their daily lives, needs and questions.

- Parents are taken seriously.- There is no ‘top-down’ learning – and learning is

by doing.- Mothers and children are always involved

together.- The approach is ‘tailor-made’ for any situation.- There is close and caring interaction between

mothers, children and playleaders.- The playgroups include multicultural toys, food

and festivities.- Special attention is paid to language acquisition,

socio-emotional skills and self-reliance, and tolearning to recognise and associate with thethings around you (environmental awareness).

- Special attention is given to the multiculturaldiversity of Dutch society. Instead of one-offpresentations of the exotic or of differencesbetween cultures, the emphasis is on the fact thatthe presence of other cultures is a natural,permanent part of the environment.

- There is constant reflection on what ishappening.

Does it work?

Samenspel reaches the parents and children thatother pre-school provisions do not: that alone isone solid measure of effectiveness. On the day today level, effectiveness can be related to theenthusiasm shown by the mothers and children.In quantitative terms, the number of mothers andchildren attending the playgroups continues toincrease; there is a growing demand for moreplaygroups; and the centres have reached theirmaximum capacity.





If you take working with parents seriously, then what you do

largely depends on them. It makes no sense to force something

upon parents that does not affect them: people will not respond to

developments in their neighbourhood if they feel

detached from them. ”

“Playgroups are seen as a vehicle for development and theeffectiveness of Samenspel’s playgroups can be seen in thereactions in the formal primary school sector. ‘Samenspelchildren’ are readily identified because they feel more atease, speak out more frequently and keep pace with thecurriculum.

Parents speak of ‘a world opening up to them’. They saythat participating in the playgroups makes them moreconfident, that they have become aware that ‘theythemselves are not doing badly at all.’ They say they haveseen their children become more sociable and self-reliant;and that they have learned more about how they canfurther stimulate the development of their childrenthemselves. They also communicate better with teachersbecause they have become used to consulting withplayleaders about their children.

The project observes that, as mothers develop confidencein Samenspel, they also develop more confidencethemselves and show this in a number of ways. Forexample, they tend to also talk with each other aboutadditional subjects that are of interest to them. Self-initiated mutual contact improves: women living in thesame neighbourhood get to know each other andsometimes make joint efforts to break through theirisolated lives. They begin to feel more at home in theirneighbourhood and often become more active socially. ❍




Actually Samenspel is a movement, a dynamic,

a philosophy, a method.

It is not a certain project but a whole way of thinking

and acting and reacting.

”

“

Marinde Hurenkamp

Most of the work that I did was based on the

records that the Foundation has. While these are

extensive and highly informative, they are limited in

the sense that they seldom convey the feel of the

project, the particularity of its day to day work, and

the nuances of the working, social, emotional and

development environments that it generates and

sustains. It is only by actually spending time with a

project that I could gain some real insights into

what is going on and about the value of this for all

those who are participating.

I was able to visit one of the centres operated by the

Samenspel project in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

One meaning of Samenspel is ‘playing together’,

and that is what I went to experience: mothers and

children of Turkish origin playing together. Before I

went, I asked the Programme Specialist in the

Foundation who is responsible for The Netherlands

‘What would you say is multicultural in Samenspel?’

She was a little surprised and she didn’t know how

to answer. When I visited the centre, I saw and also

sensed what was going on, and then I understood

why she couldn’t answer my question: the question

was inappropriate because the setting, the activities

and the feel of the centre are multicultural in them-

selves. Multiculturalism is an organic part of the

whole. Culturally relevant approaches are not added

on, or expressed separately, or given great

individual emphasis. You can’t make a list of them

and understand what Samenspel is about just by

reciting the list. But you know what it is when you

are there experiencing it, not least because of the

harmonious and intimate atmosphere that you

experience.

One of the Turkish mothers there told me that she

had moved from Turkey to Germany when she was

five or six years old. Her mother did not speak any

German so there she was, a small girl, having to

learn how to cope for herself within a strange

society. Now she lives in The Netherlands, and is

using that sort of experience and building on it in

her work with children. It was such a good

experience talking to her, not just because of her

story, but also because she was dressed

traditionally while her two young daughters were

dressed like two of the Spice Girls (a singing group

popular in some countries).



The organic way

And a young child shalllead them

Sesame Street:Kids for Peaceproject

The Sesame Street: Kids for Peace project is a new member of the famous Sesame Street family ofeducational television programmes for young children. It has been developed for Palestinian children inthe Palestinian Autonomous Region, and Jewish and Arabic children in Israel, to counter the messages ofdivision and confrontation that they receive every day. The project was inspired by the 1993 handshakeat the White House in Washington, USA, between the Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat and the thenPrime Minister of Israel, Yitzak Rabin. It is a joint venture between the Children’s Television Workshop(CTW) New York, USA, Israeli Educational Television, and the Institute of Modern Media of the Al-QudsUniversity, Jerusalem. This article reviews the complexities involved in producing programmes for

young children that can effectively promote mutual respect and understanding.

Sesame Street: kids for peace (Israel, Palestinian Autonomous Region)

Special puppets made for these special programmes


The project’s full title includes ‘And a young childshall lead them’ – something that catches the senseand purpose of Sesame Street (Rechov Sumsum inHebrew, Shara’a Sumsum in Arabic).Its objectives are:

- to teach children in a violence stricken regionmutual respect and understanding, and conflictresolution and;

- to address the cognitive, affective and socialneeds of Israeli-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian andPalestinian children.

The main target audiences are Israeli-Jewish,Israeli-Palestinian and Palestinian pre-schoolchildren aged three to seven and their families, intheir homes and kindergartens. However, theprogramme makers hope to reach older children.

There are four major components in the project ofwhich the core element is a total of 70 half hour,bilingual programmes. These have newlydeveloped characters, puppets, street scenes, liveaction segments and animation to develop respectand understanding of difference. There are alsospecially developed books, games, and teachingmaterials in Arabic and Hebrew.

As well as the very obvious need to work withyoung children who live in such culturally divided

and violent contexts, the rationalefor these programmes derives fromresearch that shows that stereotypesof Palestinian and Israeli childrenare formulated at a very young age.One study reveals that by the ageof six, a majority of Jewishchildren have a negativeconceptualisation of Palestinianchildren. As children aged fromtwo and a half to three and a halfyears old begin to use the word‘Arab’ they are still neutral in theirideas about Palestinians. Soon, howeverinformation coming from theirenvironments shapes their ideas and theydevelop negative views.* A similarsituation is held to be true of Palestinianchildren as well.

Culturally relevant dynamics in the

preparation process

CTW was established in1969 with the thenrevolutionary ideathat television could beused as a tool foreducating childrenthroughout the USA. Sincethen, it has accumulated a


huge body of experience in makingentertaining educational programmesin a wide variety of countries. Each isdeveloped to be appropriate for thecontexts that its viewers live in.

As happens in all Sesame Streetproductions, this project involved astrong group of local advisors and

multidisciplinary resource persons inworkshops and seminars. The groupincluded both Israelis and Palestinians:educators, writers and illustrators ofchildren’s books, musicians, animators,and specialists in pedagogy, psychology,sociology and communication.Effectively they were the voice of thechild, helping the production team to

keep a child-centred focus; and theycovered such curriculum issues aslanguage, moral values, children’s selfimage, stereotyped beliefs, andmethods of bringing about change.Specific contributions related to thecharacteristics and needs of children inthe various target groups. Theseincluded: health and nutrition;

democratic education in the family andin interpersonal relations; cognitiveand social-emotional expression;conflict resolution; stereotypes andprejudice; the collective psychologicalbarrier between Israelis andPalestinians; and trust and confidencein adults.


Mothers and children aged three toseven were consulted in group sessionsabout their favourite activities, abouttelevision viewing patterns and aboutthe roles of mothers in supervisingtelevision viewing. Among many otherdata, this revealed that Palestinianmothers prefer television to be inArabic rather than other languages,prefer the use of everyday, simpleArabic to classical Arabic, show highinterest in segments about Israelichildren; and demonstrate awareness ofthe programme’s educational messages.

Generally, Palestinians also concludedthat their children view unsuitable

television programmes, and that theymust invest in educationally sound andstimulating programmes, given thattelevision is such a major influence inchildren’s lives.

Building on what is shared; and

understanding and respecting

difference

The initial stages of this project weretense, with a range of concerns thathad to be resolved. For example, interms of co-operation, there werequestions about who would really havethe decision making power, andworries about being seen as

collaborators who would be coercedinto unacceptable positions. In terms ofthe content, some people were afraid ofpresenting a utopian, over-idealisticseries that was not sufficiently based inreality. They questioned the themes ofmutual respect and understandingwhen so much in the children’senvironments pointed to violentdivision and intolerance. In terms ofcontentiousness, there was concernabout dealing with issues that raiseparticular intergroup tensions.

The suggested solution was to stay clearof images and material that stresseddivision and conflict, and to focus

instead on contexts in which IsraeliJewish and Arab, as well as Palestinianchildren or adults do intermingle. Thatincludes a focus on what childrenshare: family; emotions; games; thedesire for peace; living; eating; sleeping;playing; learning and loving side byside. In practical terms, the approachwas to be safe and non-political,looking through the eyes of a four yearold, stressing similarities and pointingup differences so that these can beunderstood and respected. Children areshown the traditions, ancestors andhistory that they share; and theircultural and religious similarities.Differences range from foods to


holidays. Messages of understandingand respect have to be transmittedthrough these sorts of processes: it isonly by strengthening children’snational and cultural identities thatthey can be expected to understandand be tolerant of another culture.

However, it is also necessary to avoidgeneralisation. Nuances and detailsabout people are very important andthe aim is to portray the whole range ofcharacters that exist in eachcommunity. There are differencesbetween subgroups within eachcultural group, and these includeurban, rural or camp settings; socio-economic, educational and culturallevels; and language differences.

The Israelis and the Palestinians havetheir own street in the series: each isdistinct and autonomous, and thecharacters come to one street or theother. There is no attempt to engineeran artificially mixed context. Thisdevice also avoids the problems ofdevising a third setting in which thetwo sides could meet freely; or ofhaving a token or stereotypicalpresence by one side or the other.

Language issues

Each Sesame Street: Kids For Peaceprogramme is bilingual, beingcomprised of segments in both Arabicand Hebrew. Naturally the Hebrewprogrammes contain more Hebrewthan Arabic and vice versa; while eachalso contains ‘cross-over segments’ –parts in which characters who live inone of the streets visit their friends inthe other.

Language is the best door into anyculture – it can almost guarantee agreat deal of understanding. But manyother issues also arose. For example, itwas felt that Palestinians were losingtheir capacity to express themselvesadequately and fluently in Arabic –especially the Israeli Arabs, for whomHebrew was becoming the dominantlanguage, something that mightundermine their cultural heritage. Theimportance of Arabic to Palestinianstherefore had to be asserted.

Making a bilingual programme forthree to seven year olds presentedproblems. For example, subtitles wereuseless: young children cannot read

them. However, researchers identifiedsome 3,000 elements that the twolanguages share. These include sounds,phrases and greetings, and words fornumbers, body parts and somehousehold items. Byaccentuating some ofthese, it wasfelt that theseriescould doa greatdealto


introduce children to simple elementsof each other’s language and to helpmutual respect and understanding.

The programmes ... and reactions to

them

The first programme wasbroadcast on 1 April 1998

on Israel EducationalTelevision’s (IETV)

Second Channel. Itwas broadcast

throughoutIsrael and partsof thePalestinianAutonomousRegion. It was30 minutes longand consisted ofsegmentsproduced byIETV, Al-QudsUniversity’sInstitute ofModern Media,and some CTW

segments thathad beendubbed into

Hebrew and Arabic. On the same day,the first edition of a Palestinian versionof the programme was premiered onAl-Quds Educational Television. Thiswas 15 minutes long, and includedsegments produced by all threeparticipating organisations. Each of theremaining programmes in this series –20 in all – were broadcast three times aweek to six major Palestinian cities.

Meanwhile, IETV went on to broadcast15 programmes in a two-week periodfollowing the 1 April premiere and,following the summer break, broadcastthe remaining programmes at the rateof one per day. Further broadcastingschedules include timings that suittargeted audiences such askindergarten teachers as they workwith young children.

A summative evaluation of the entireproject has started and will continuethrough 22 weeks. Among other goals,it will determine the programme’seffectiveness in teaching the originaleducational goals; and examinechildren’s exposure to theprogrammes.

Anecdotal responses to theprogrammes have been very positive:children are watching them, enjoyingthem and learning from them. ❍

* Lazar M and Spyer A (1995) A summary of selected research andprogrammes: dealing with stereotypesand specifically stereotypes of Arab andIsraeli Jewish pre-school children inIsrael.

Please note that illustrations andphotographs used in this article are © Children’s Television Workshop andmust not be used without permission.

Africa Community Publishing and Development Trust (Zimbabwe)

Child researchers

Photo: Joanne Currie


Zimbabwe The new community publishing

Kathy Bond-Stewart

Kathy Bond-Stewart is a writer and co-ordinator with theAfrica Community Publishing and Development Trust

(ACPDT), a non-profit trust with a national network in all 58districts in Zimbabwe. It has expertise in participatory

development training, in research and in the production oftraining materials; and specialises in a range of

development activities modestly grouped under the title of‘community publishing’. Put very simply, this is a

combination of two concepts ‘community development’ and‘publishing’ that builds the skills, confidence and creativityof community activists, by involving them in the collective

production and distribution of publications and materials.However, it is much more complex and profound than that.

In this article, Kathy Bond-Stewart discusses the ChiyubunuzyoProgramme with the Tonga people of Zimbabwe who were displacedfrom their traditional lands by a dam building scheme. They weremoved to the centre of a game reserve, thus exposing them todangerous wild animals ... and to tourists. The government ofZimbabwe has worked out an integrated development programmefor them, in collaboration with a number of development agencies.ACPDT has been helping the Tongas to build up to a level oforganisation that will allow them to negotiate for full participationin all aspects of this development plan. Similar processes alsoenabled Tonga people to negotiate the nature of their pre-schoolprovision. For this they worked in partnership with the Federationof Kushanda Pre-schools.

The setting

The general context in which weoperate changed very much from the1980s to the 1990s. A lot more peopleare experiencing very deep poverty,and structural adjustment is a majorfactor here now. Basically many ofthe hopes and dreams that peoplehad fought for during the struggle forindependence were lost and manycitizens retreated into passivity – asort of quiet despair. There is also ageneral cynicism about even NGOs,churches, and so on. It’s much moredifficult to work for change whenpeople have already been through aprocess of change that has betrayedtheir hopes. However, there is agovernment policy and a programmefor poverty reduction which at leastis a recognition of the problem; andthere is quite a lot of support fromother agencies in dealing withpoverty. There is also a generalinterest in capacity building,especially of local government.

We’ve discovered that the moremarginalised and oppressed peoplehave been, the stronger the potentialfor them to be really creative and

energetic and motivated afterwards.That’s very hopeful. I think anyhuman being in any situation, ifgiven the right encouragement, cando far more than we can imagine. Asan example of this, I can talk aboutthe Chiyubunuzyo Programme thatoperates in the area of the worstpoverty in Zimbabwe. The peoplethere have been moved to make wayfor a lake, have had a very painfulhistory and have been marginalisedas a minority ethnic group. Thisactually made their motivation anddetermination very strong. Anotherfactor is that, because they areoverwhelmingly Tonga, they have akind of gentleness which is veryimpressive, and which is notpassivity, but a peaceful approachwith real strength and determinationbehind it. That’s been good, becausewe are very interested in encouragingnon-violent ways of handlingconflicts. I can imagine that if harderpeople had gone through theexperiences the Tonga went throughthey would have become violent.There was every provocation becausethey survived very difficultcircumstances.

Chiyubunuzyo is:

the Tonga word for Revelation;

the process of revealing what was

previously secret;

the reality of our poverty as well as our

creativity;

through research, the root of everything.

Chiyubunuzyo is:

a clear structure for uprooting poverty,

developing our area through

developing our minds,

creative effort

power in development

beauty.

Chiyubunuzyo is:

sharing leadership,

helping people with their problems,

meeting for a purpose,

without gossip or quarrels,

building strong groups,

loving each other,

having friendship with others in justice.

Chiyubunuzyo is:

our process of becoming leaders,

researchers, writers, artists,

teachers, producers and decision

makers;

feeling:

happy, proud, hopeful,

independent in mind and heart;

feeling freedom.

‘Chiyubunuzyo’ means ‘Revelation’ and the Chiyubunuzyo Programme is about

revealing what people can do. It aims to transform poverty into prosperity in a

remote and very poor area of Zimbabwe, through an integrated economic,

environmental, social and organisational development process. One of its main

strategies is community-based research and writing, and the stimulation of all forms

of creativity. ACPDT designed and facilitated a leadership programme for

Chiyubunuzyo. The idea was to build a new young leadership, drawn from the

lowest income groups, with a majority of women participants. The nature and spirit

of that training - and indeed of Chiyubunuzyo – is caught by a poem that is based on

the evaluation comments of participants in the leadership programme.

The Chiyubunuzyo Programme


The community publishing way

Community publishing as amethodology, is based profoundly onworking creatively with the realitywhich is there. Everything is deeplyinfluenced by the local situation. Withthis Tonga group, it was very importantto encourage cultural wisdom andtradition and to promote the language,especially because people were veryangry about their culture and languagenot being recognised. And there’s noway that we could have done anythingin the area without trying very hard toexplore and encourage the best of whatwas there.

It’s very important that local peoplelead themselves, teach themselves andorganise themselves; and it’s importantthat we, as a service organisation, don’thang on to the control and thatcommunication is completely two-way,with both parties free to challenge eachother on anything. So, although there’sreally widespread knowledge now thatdevelopment programmes shouldn’t beimposed and that local people shouldbe consulted, it is actually verychallenging to make that real.

Another important attitude is honesty,even when it’s quite painful orembarrassing. And we also like toencourage the people that we workwith to have, express and share healthydoubts. And to use, give and receivecriticism constructively. It’s a veryhonest atmosphere. I think that’s veryimportant.

Approaches and processes that work

... and those that don’t

For me as a development worker, it’sextremely important in this kind ofwork to have a deep humility andopenness, as well as a willingness to bedeeply challenged and changed oneself,to be really turned upside down. A lotof people in Africa work indevelopment for money. It’s amultimillion dollar business. And evenwhen they have rejected thosetemptations, sometimes they get a lotof power out of making huge decisionsthat affect millions of people. Often theattitude of agencies coming in – thatthey’re highly educated specialists – isincredibly dehumanising. It absolutelyshatters people’s confidence. But it’s sosubtle. It’s not just in how workers

consciously carry it out, it’s also in howpeople sit, how they talk, how theytravel, where they stay. There are allsorts of subtle controls and signs ofsuperiority which local people findextremely discouraging, so they justclose up or put on a different face andpretend to do it or just withdraw. Soit’s essential to come in with completerespect and openness, and to be able tocompletely hand over control of aprocess to local people.

At the practical level, you can’t just takeone approach and use it all over thecountry. You have to take a veryspecific and local approach. On theother hand, from the very beginningwe like to work with a sense of doingsomething which is significant to thecountry as a whole and which we hopewill have some significanceinternationally.

In the processes we have developed inthe Chiyubunuzyo Programme, wehave combined writing, research andorganising. When people first expressedwho they were, their stories and imageswere very painful and so despairing.But when we probed a bit further we

discovered that underneath there’s abasic toughness that helps them tosurvive almost impossible situations.And gradually, through the wholeprocess of stimulating peopleintellectually and giving them a newsense of themselves, they developed astrong confidence in their own abilitiesand discovered their own creativity.Having done that, there’s very littlework which we need to do to supportthe whole process of change. It’s simplydesigning a framework that offers reallystrong support.

But it doesn’t just happen. It’s notsimple to get everyone in a village toparticipate. We don’t just start with ablank slate and ask ‘What do you feellike doing and how do you feel likedoing it?’ I think that quite oftencreative initiatives are very weak on theorganisational side. It is very importantto combine developing strong creativityand intellectual skills, with a verystrong organisational base. We havevery strong principles and very detailedparticipatory organisational methodsthat we transfer to those we work withto make sure we get the quality ofparticipation and change that we’re

looking for. We encourage people to dotheir own workshops and trainthemselves, but they are highly structuredworkshops. That way, we teach peopledemocratic ways of working which areeffective. And practical skills: how tomotivate people, how to build trust,communicate, run a meeting whichactually achieves a purpose, do the kind ofresearch which leads to change. I thinkthese skills are very rare, although in away they’re very basic. Even people withfar more education in Zimbabwe oftenlack many of these skills. So thecombination of stimulating creativity andstimulating people intellectually at thesame time as giving people strongorganisational tools, is particularly useful.

For the last year we’ve been testingeverything we know in extremelyimpoverished villages. What’s happened isthat our initial instincts have becomestrong convictions. When we developedour form of publishing as a tool forchange we didn’t realise why it was soimportant to begin with people’s minds. Itwas only when we studied poverty deeplythat we realised that the worst effect of itis inside people and in their self-imageand relationships. So the best possiblestarting point is to work with peopleintellectually, to work with the human


Chiyubunuzyo Programme: the complete picture

spirit. One of the things we are setting upthrough a sister organisation, Africa BooksDevelopment Trust, is libraries in each village,so that people have information on whatever istheir interest. We have a whole range, fromnovels to very practical ‘how to’ books, becausethey have very broad reading interests.

Working with women and young children

Although we haven’t been working in a veryspecialised way with children at all, we want todo a lot more work with them in the future. In1995 we carried out a study of communityviews on poverty with research assistants from abackground of poverty. From this, it is veryclear that children and the very old bear theworst brunt of poverty. So any real work totackle poverty has to recognise and supportchildren, and give them a central role.Participants in our programmes may developinto future leaders. They may be young parents.You see all the women in the programme withtheir toddlers around them. Babies are so visible at our meetings. All we have to do, in an organised way, is stimulate and supportthose look after babies to stimulate childrenbefore they go to pre-school, so that the support of young children doesn’t become just something at pre-school. It must be much wider.

31 E a r l y C h i l d h o o d M a t t e r s

When we look at children in the villages, wewant to begin with the relationships andfamilies they are born into; how children areplanned, thought about even before birth.And the conditions of birth: there are nomaternity facilities for hundreds ofkilometres and women died because facilitiesare inadequate. Any complications meansthat women would have to walk a long waybecause bus stops are very far, and use a lot ofmoney to go on a journey over a hundredkilometres. Can you imagine women with acomplicated labour, having the money, evenbeing able to go that distance?

Fortunately, through writing, researching andorganising about the issues, people aregetting maternity facilities at a new clinic in anearby village. It seems that with a lot oforganisation and documentation, people canclaim improved health services and get whatthey need. It is just not automatic, they haveto work for these things.

In the Chiyubunuzyo Programme, we plan towork with babyminders and families. Wewant to look at the place of the child in thefamily and – in the pre-schools – we want tobring grandmothers in by pairing them withthe trained teachers. The people in these

There is an acute book hunger among children

in Zimbabwe. At the same time there is a

wonderfully rich heritage of traditional stories,

proverbs, riddles and songs, coupled to a

participatory style of story telling. But all of this

is rapidly disappearing: a survey has shown

that it is only in the most remote areas that

people can remember these creative,

traditional ways of educating and entertaining

young children. In response to this, ACPDT

operates the Foundation-supported

Documenting Traditional Stories project, an

initiative that is responding to the hunger for

books by rescuing traditional stories, songs

and so on, and producing a series of books

and cassettes that feature them. To ensure

that the work can continue in the future, the

books and cassettes are to be sold

commercially to high-income families and

are also exported. The resultant profits are

to be used to distribute the books and

cassettes non-commercially to low-

income families.

Ephat Mujuru, a distinguished and popular musician is a

storyteller in the Shona tradition, a tradition that blends story

telling, songs and music. He has been collaborating with ACPDT

in this work, not only collecting the stories and songs, but also

photographing the now elderly storytellers and recording their

life stories to be shared with children. Chiyubunuzyo participants

are now also assisting with this work.

Collecting Stories



A story-telling session

Photo: Fiona McDougall/One world Photo

villages are very concerned about thesituation of children and so they have donetheir own survey and report on that. Andagain we were very moved because in thechildren’s survey that they did – with verysmall children, often literally naked, under-nourished and out of school – they were soarticulate about their situation. They oftenused very creative images to express things,like: ‘Going to school would be like visitingthe moon’. We are also building a lot ofresearch and documentation into thedevelopment of schools, and will, hopefully,transform the existing schools in the future.

Another survey and report has been done byparticipants in the ChiyubunuzyoProgramme, on children in difficultcircumstances. This includes every child in 12villages who is out of school, orphaned,disabled or abused. A special programme isbeing planned for these children. We’recomplete beginners in working with childrenbut we’ll be looking at the child very broadly.Children are very central in terms of what webelieve in and we guess that children are farmore capable than anyone imagines them tobe. Working seriously with children in acontext where they are highly valued will bevery exciting.

Community-based research

Community-based research is carriedout by the village people and it looks atall aspects of life. We don’t give themany deep training, only a continuousvery light guidance in research andwriting, and very simple frameworks asstarting points for their research.Parents, for instance, might be interestedin the lack of health and educationservices. Then there are questions aboutthe realities for children in very difficultcircumstances; and the place of the childin the family and in relationships. It’svery funny because some men talk veryelaborately about children as theirtreasure, and then the research uncoversthe fact that they have maybe spent twominutes in the last six months playingwith their own children. A very crucialpoint is for the researchers to respectchildren as the most importantinformants, and even encourage veryyoung children to give information.They have to start with building trustthrough play, and then get children intoexpressing their views in drawings orjust chatting. Village researchers getquite startled when tiny children – oftenthree year olds – turn out to be so vocaland articulate in expressing themselves.



What community research reveals

For work on two reports on young children incommunal and farming areas, villageresearchers knew about children but were newto research. We matched them withexperienced community publishing researchersfor experiential learning. Then we got them todo a third report with only minor guidance, sothey could prove to themselves that they coulddo it. We have also enabled another study, thistime on children in mining communities. Thewords, drawings and statements of the youngchildren there were so moving that evenhardened managers from internationalcompanies started doing things to improve thesituation even before the research was finishedand published. It’s delightful how forceful thatcan be and how it can really motivate agenciesto wake up and do something quickly.

What people build on

In the areas where we work, people only havetheir collective strength and their individualtalents. Community publishing processessomehow really challenge individuals andreally encourage the uniqueness of eachindividual. There’s also a lot of collectivesupport. Getting back to context – temporalcontext you might call it – if you look at thetwentieth century, there’s been a mindlesscollectivism that swamps our individualuniqueness and, at the same time, there’s been

a sort of very insane individualism that hascompletely forgotten about collective concerns.Our approach tries to balance these and I’malways delighted that, in a movement of a fewhundred people, each person is such a definiteand unique individual. You get to know themas completely different strong individuals, butcollectively very supportive of each other.

The intelligence, creativity and energy of thevillage people make it hard for us to keep up:basically, we are running after the people whowe are meant to be supporting. We believe thatchildren’s abilities are also astonishing and welook forward to involving children of all agesin community publishing. Although it’s beendifficult because the material situation isterrible, it’s been a much more joyful processthan we’d ever anticipated. I think it’s veryimportant for people to know that: this kindof work is difficult, challenging and risky, butit’s very joyful. ❍

The following publications are available from AfricaCommunity Publishing and Development Trust:

The Suffering are the cornerstones in building a nation

Details community views on poverty and wealth creation.

(produced for UNDP and the Government of Zimbabwe)

Inside our world

A situational analysis of women and children in Zimbabwe’s

mining sector. (produced for the National Plan for Children, UNICEF

and the Association of Mine Workers Union of Zimbabwe)

Value children for a better future; and

Treasure children: our hope for the future

The first of these two books is a situational analysis of women

and children in the Muzarabani area. The second is a situational

analysis of women and children on commercial farms in the

Norton Selous area. (produced for the Kushanda Pre-schools and

the Bernard van Leer Foundation)

For more details, please contact

Africa Community Publishing and Development Trust,

PO Box 7250,

Harare,

Zimbabwe;

tel/fax: +262 4 794178

email: [email protected]

website: www.icon.co.zw/~acpd


Publications from ACPDT


Early Learning Resource Unit (Republic of South Africa)

Kabakae Playgroup


Motivating in challenging contextsFreda Brock

The Early Learning Resource Unit (ELRU), was established withFoundation support in 1978 and became one of the mostprominent agencies in early childhood development (ECD) inSouth Africa. Its principal target groups are parents, caregivers,trainers and non formal pre-school teachers in townships andinformal settlements; and ELRU aims to support initiatives thatare created by the people themselves. However, it recognisedthat its approaches and programmes were not working well insome poor, violent, multiracial communities.

Since the early eighties it has therefore been developing an ideathat is wholly relevant to such contexts – in fact one that has

been fashioned specially for these communities. It is called theCommunity Motivators programme. Community Motivatorsare people from the communities who start from whatever isthere – which often means almost nothing in the way ofdevelopment structures and resources. They give direct supportto families, often on a one-to-one basis; and are also trained tonetwork and link people with the fragmented services andresources that exist for children and families.

Freda Brock joined ELRU in November 1994 as Director, withoverall responsibility for ELRU’s programmes, and specialresponsibility for team building and fundraising.

South Africa


The communities and their

characteristics

In developing the CommunityMotivators programmes, we chose towork in four communities that wereparticularly challenging. Three areinformal settlements withpredominantly ‘African’ populations;while one is a sub economic housingestate with a ‘Coloured’ population.*There’s a mix of people in the informalsettlements – mostly South Africans,with many migrating to the region fromthe Transkei and Ciskei in search ofwork and a better life. Many come fromother African countries.

Different kinds of dynamics prevail ineach, including political conflicts andconflicts about resources. For exampleNGOs are generally perceived by peoplein those areas as being financed byinternational funders, by thegovernment or local companies. Certainpeople set themselves up as thegatekeepers, and there are issues aboutturf (territory). You might find a civicorganisation in an area that said ‘Weknow what the needs are in thiscommunity; why are you using the

money to benefit this particular group?And who gave permission for yourorganisation to work in this area?’ Theprocess of negotiating and renegotiatingthe right to be in a community is asensitive and time-consuming one.

Violence is a huge factor. Powerfulpolitical, civic, gang or economicallydriven groupings and structures withincommunities are often in conflict withone another. There is also a high rate ofdomestic violence. So violence is verymuch a feature and it is why a very highlevel of trauma exists withincommunities.

But there are positive elements as well.For example, despite the fact thatfamilies have been displaced, with thefather living in one place and themother in another, the sense of family isstill very strong. In most cases the familyis an extended one, involving a numberof relatives who live far apart and whocan be involved in rearing a child. Thereare, however, other problems for thechild who is moved about to differentcaregivers, often missing out on keysupports such as the immunisationprogrammes or school enrolment.

Another very positive factor is thatpossibilities for income-generation andgainful employment are developing.People also take the initiative to make aliving. But there are limits to theresources and to the strength that isthere: great numbers of people arestruggling to survive poverty.

The Community Motivators

To offer support or to bring aboutchange in these complex environmentsand circumstances is very difficult.Whatever you do has to be accepted bythe community. It also has to makesense to the other formal and informalstructures that exist there – that meanseither working with them to maximisethe benefit, or at least working withtheir understanding. There is also thequestion of who is most qualified ormost appropriate to work in thesecommunities; who will be accepted andtrusted. For us, it has to be local people,the sort of people who we callCommunity Motivators.

But you don’t just come across peoplelike these. There needs to be a lot ofgroundwork in each community. We

There are positive elements as well.

For example, despite the fact that

families have been displaced, with the

father living in one place and the

mother in another, the sense of family

is still very strong.

”

“

Working in the Nyanga HostelsThese hostels were originally meant for single men but whole families live here in

extremely overcrowded and poverty-stricken conditions. Working in the passages,

Zoleka and Bulelwa the home visitors, working with Sisi Baba, the Community

Motivator, first informed the people who live there about the activities that they

intended to do with their children during home visiting.

They also taught the parents about learning opportunities for children in the home

setting; and showed them other things that are available in homes that parents

can use to help their children develop. The parents do not need to buy toys but

instead can involve the children in their housework and teach them the names of

things. They also mentioned that the children could develop through this

involvement by identifying colours, shapes and sizes and also learn to follow

instructions. The mothers showed interest and went on to learn about making

toys out of scraps.

The children could also hear the Community Motivators when they were visiting

other homes and would call out – ‘Here is our Sisi (auntie) and we are going to

play and she is going to show us how to write’. Activities with blocks, cutting and

pasting and also outdoor activities followed. One mother informed them that

‘Since you have started this programme of visiting us, life became so easy in this

house. My children pick up things like old tins, papers, and sponges that they see

in the yard and they ask me to keep it for Sisi when she comes to play with us so

that we can have more toys to play with. This also keeps my yard clean.’

During these visits they gave some mothers homework to do with their children

so that the next time when they come to visit, the mother would give a report of

how she helped her child with the homework. One of the parents in the hostel

wanted to stop her child from joining the group. But her child told her that she

wanted to join in because she had never gone to crèche. The mother allowed her

to go, and also started to gain interest herself.

work with existing local organisationsto help people carry out a kind ofsurvey, produce a profile of the area,canvas opinions, and spread awarenessof the need for, and options for ECD.This includes looking at what existsalready and looking at points that canbe strengthened. One approach isthrough organising a series of talksabout nutrition and health; another isthrough door to door visiting. It’s amatter of getting people’s interest andthen beginning to identify those peoplewho are interested in developing somesort of work with children. After this, ata public meeting, criteria are developedfor Community Motivators and namesare put forward. Some people may havevolunteered or have been identified by

the community, and there is an electionat the meeting and the chosen personcomes to ELRU for training.

However, Community Motivators areemployed by local organisations thatsupervise them and ultimately takeresponsibility for the project. Theseorganisations vary in nature. One ofthe projects is overseen by anorganisation that specialises in childwelfare. Another ECD organisation sawthis initiative as an extension of its ownwork and took responsibility forCommunity Motivators in its area. Inanother community, a churchorganisation put up a committee with agroup of parents to supervise andadminister the funds and to give


Community Motivator at work, Brown’s Farm

40 E a r l y C h i l d h o o d M a t t e r s

Mobilising talentThemba is a young man in his middle twenties. He

came into contact with Doris (the Community

Motivator) when she was doing her work in the

community. He came as someone who was going to

help as a handy man. His contact with the children

revives the other side of him. He started coming in

more often, and involving himself with the children

when they were doing activities. He started sharing his

experiences with his friends in their youth group. They

responded by writing three plays for the children with

him – and they then presented them. Themba’s friends

in his youth group admire what he does. Children from

different homes, parents and the entire community

were invited. The plays were about different things

–comedy, road safety and caring for animals at home. It

was a good experience for parents and children.

Themba says he enjoys coming to the centre and

getting involved during activities and the children also

enjoy his presence. People in the community do not

understand, some even make nasty remarks about him

because of what he is doing. But times are changing

and, after all, children belong to all of us: ‘We are

fathers of these children that we think it is the

responsibility of women to look after.'

Themba’s concern about the community is that many

women with young children are drinking and they take

their children with them to the shebeens (drinking

houses). Shebeens are not good for children. He and

his group have decided to write a short play about that,

although they feel demotivated because of small

attendances at previous performances. But there are

ways of encouraging them.

support to the Community Motivator aswell. In the fourth community, where therewas less structure, interested people formed asmall committee.

Training needs

The training is akin to community workertraining: how to gain entry to a community;draw up a profile; do networking; useresources; refer people with specific needs tothe right facilities; and so on. Childdevelopment is an important component, asis adult education and training in techniquesrelating to home visiting, or in operatingparent awareness programmes. Working inpeople’s homes, with mothers, requiresparticular skills. Various options such asplaygroups are possible depending on theneeds identified by the CommunityMotivators and the areas in which they are

working. There is also some training inmanagement where relevant.

Coping with violence is an important areathat also requires preparation and trainingfor the Community Motivators. They have tolearn skills in helping people to deal withtrauma, and in building resilience morebroadly than at the personal level. They alsoneed to develop strategies to help peoplemake progress at community level. Thismight mean facilitating a collectiveconsciousness of what their rights to securityare, and what children’s rights are. This couldlead to helping people develop and use linksto other resource organisations.

ELRU trains people from all parts of thecountry to be Community Motivators intheir own areas. Some have come from othercountries in Southern Africa. We offer them a

Early Learning Resource Unit

(Republic of South Africa)

Making use of Granny’s skills and knowledge

support and monitoring programmeafterwards, keep in touch with themand help them develop networks forsupport. The strategy that we havedeveloped has worked very well in someareas, but in others work has beendifficult, often because of violence andpolitical strife, but also because moreintensive support is needed than we areable to give at present. We are workingon ways to increase our capacity in thisregard.

How Community Motivators are

perceived and received

As for the kind of reception thatCommunity Motivators get when theyapproach families, we have case studiesfrom the four areas and these includewhat families think about them. Theyincluded comments that showed thatsome people are much more concernedwith having food on the table for theirchild; while others seized theopportunity to play a part in theirchildren’s education and welcomed theresultant opportunities for personaldevelopment.

Gaugingimpact

The Community Motivators took

part in an assessment to try to get

some idea of the impact of the

Community Motivators programme.

None of them had been involved in

this kind of exercise before. This is

what they felt about the data

collection experience.

‘It was worthwhile – we didn’t know

we could do such a job.’

‘We realised that we had done

something to those families but we

didn’t know how to go back and see

what we did and what they had got.’

‘We got a light and will carry on

with this.’

And this is what the survey

revealed:

Eighteen of the random sample of

20 principle caregivers were

mothers, mostly in their 20s and

30s. Schooling ranged from none at

all to Standard 9 but Standard 6 or 7

(8 to 9 years schooling) was most

common. Twelve mothers were

engaged in some way in generating

income for the household – three as

domestic workers and nine were

self-employed: recycling; brewing

beer; or selling food or supplies in

the settlement. Seven of the

households were made up of single

women and their children.

More than half of all responses

referred to the help the programme

provided in freeing up their time for

other pressing tasks such as income

generation, caring for other family

members or creating time for them

to spend on themselves. Life in the

informal settlement involves

numerous time-consuming duties

such as the gathering of fuel and

fetching water, as well as numerous

domestic tasks. Skills and

knowledge were valued

(approximately one quarter of

responses) and there were a

number of women who found it

worthwhile at the personal level

because of an increase in self-

esteem, sharing with others, and so

on. Staff has mentioned the extreme

isolation of many women living in

this community and the role that the

weekly discussion groups played in

breaking this down.

Mothers’ perceptions of the

programme’s aims are very child-

related with a focus on educating

the children, helping them play with

others, feeding them and keeping

them safe. Half of all responses

mentioned education as an aim.

There did not appear to be much

understanding of the programme’s

objective of involving parents in this

process. More than half felt that

their family had a better

understanding of how children

develop and learn, with a particular

emphasis on nutrition and health.

Families also focused on the

programme’s aims of educating,

feeding and protecting children to

the exclusion of other goals, and

they report a positive impact. In

response to the question of what

parents would want the programme

to do, apart from childcare directed

comments, nearly half of all

responses reflect a desire for skills

development and income

generation.

ELRU staff considered that caregivers

were definitely interested in this

programme although they were not

physically present on a regular

basis. They were happy to

undertake tasks but not to waste

time if they were unclear what was

expected of them. A roster had been

developed and there had been some

expectation of payment because the

cooks and regular playleaders

received a stipend.


I’ve also seen the sort of work that aCommunity Motivator does. Perhaps Ihave only seen responsive parents inthe projects, but there does seem to bequite a level of anticipation andexcitement on receiving a visit at home.Not everything always works well. Inone of the settlements we are presentlyinvolved in a process of changing thebasic approach. Instead of having oneCommunity Motivator, the people havedecided to have a group of women who

are going to take on the role. This is apositive step toward developing amodel more appropriate to local needs.The original Community Motivatorhas left to take another job butcontinues to serve on the supportcommittee.

Where we are and the ways ahead

There is a great deal of overlap betweenwomen’s and children’s issues.

Discrimination is one area. So we haveput much emphasis on anti-bias workwhich looks at strengthening theabilities of children and caregivers todeal with the long-term effects ofdiscrimination. The anti-bias workfeeds in through the CommunityMotivator training programmes andongoing workshops. But the negativeforces are very strong and they persist,and it sometimes seems they aregetting worse.

People do care about theirchildren but tend to putgreater value on their abilityto clothe, feed and shelterthem than anything else. Inthese areas and under suchadverse conditions, theemphasis is on getting work,and rather less onchildminding and childstimulation. However, wehave found that once a person– traditionally a woman – hasrecognised the extent of therole she can play in shapingher child’s life, there is quite amarked change indemeanour, in

responsiveness, and in the will to workand share more broadly. It’s veryencouraging to see the light going onlike that. You see a person who isneglecting herself or has been neglectedsuddenly begin to take more care ofherself. You see a person who didn’tappear to think further than the nextmeal, start going to meetings, startbeing interested, start speaking to otherpeople. Those are the small indicatorsthat mean a lot: they are achievements,steps to empowerment.

What we have also seen is that thesecret of success is to plan small,realisable steps. If you take on toomuch and fail, it is much harder to tryagain – you become demoralised, orpeople lose their confidence in you. ❍

* In South Africa ‘Coloured’ refers toSouth Africans of mixed racial descent;the term ‘African’ in this article refers topeople of African origin.


Playgroup in Maipai squatter settlement

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is a private foundation based in The Netherlands. It

operates internationally, concentrating its resources on early childhood development.

The Foundation's income is derived from the bequest of Bernard van Leer (1883-1958),

a Dutch industrialist and philanthropist who, in 1919, founded an industrial and

consumer packaging company that was to become Royal Packaging Industries Van Leer

NV. This is currently a limited company operating in over 40 countries worldwide.

During his lifetime Bernard van Leer supported a broad range of humanitarian causes.

In 1949, he created the Bernard van Leer Foundation, to channel the revenues from his

fortune to charitable purposes after his death. When he died in 1958, the Foundation

became the beneficiary of the entire share capital of the then privately owned Van Leer

enterprise and other assets.

Under the leadership of his son Oscar van Leer, who died in 1996, the Foundation

focused on enhancing opportunities for children growing up in circumstances of social

and economic disadvantage to optimally develop their innate potential.

In seeking to achieve this objective, the Foundation has chosen to concentrate on

children from 0-7 years of age. This is because scientific findings have demonstrated

that interventions in the early years of childhood are most effective in yielding lasting

benefits to children and society.

The Foundation accomplishes its objective through two interconnected strategies:

1 an international grant-making programme in selected countries aimed at

developing contextually appropriate approaches to early childhood care and

development; and

2 the sharing of knowledge and know-how in the domain of early childhood

development that primarily draws on the experiences generated by the projects that

the Foundation supports, with the aim of informing and influencing policy and

practice.

A leaflet giving fuller details of the Foundation and its grant-making policy is available,

as is a Publications List. Please contact the Department of Documentation and

Communication, at the address given inside the front cover.

Trustees:

I Samrén, Chairman,

Mrs MC Benton, JL Brentjens, R Freudenberg ,

J Kremers, HB van Liemt, A Mar-Haim,

JK Pearlman, PJJ Rich.

Executive Director:

Rien van Gendt.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is a private foundation based in The Netherlands. It

operates internationally, concentrating its resources on early childhood development.

The Foundation's income is derived from the bequest of Bernard van Leer (1883-1958),

a Dutch industrialist and philanthropist who, in 1919, founded an industrial and

consumer packaging company that was to become Royal Packaging Industries Van Leer

NV. This is currently a limited company operating in over 40 countries worldwide.

During his lifetime Bernard van Leer supported a broad range of humanitarian causes.

In 1949, he created the Bernard van Leer Foundation, to channel the revenues from his

fortune to charitable purposes after his death. When he died in 1958, the Foundation

became the beneficiary of the entire share capital of the then privately owned Van Leer

enterprise and other assets.

Under the leadership of his son Oscar van Leer, who died in 1996, the Foundation

focused on enhancing opportunities for children growing up in circumstances of social

and economic disadvantage to optimally develop their innate potential.

In seeking to achieve this objective, the Foundation has chosen to concentrate on

children from 0-7 years of age. This is because scientific findings have demonstrated

that interventions in the early years of childhood are most effective in yielding lasting

benefits to children and society.

The Foundation accomplishes its objective through two interconnected strategies:

1 an international grant-making programme in selected countries aimed at

developing contextually appropriate approaches to early childhood care and

development; and

2 the sharing of knowledge and know-how in the domain of early childhood

development that primarily draws on the experiences generated by the projects that

the Foundation supports, with the aim of informing and influencing policy and

practice.

A leaflet giving fuller details of the Foundation and its grant-making policy is available,

as is a Publications List. Please contact the Department of Documentation and

Communication, at the address given inside the front cover.

Trustees:

I Samrén, Chairman,

Mrs MC Benton, JL Brentjens, R Freudenberg ,

J Kremers, HB van Liemt, A Mar-Haim,

JK Pearlman, PJJ Rich.

Executive Director:

Rien van Gendt.


About the Bernard van Leer Foundation

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