Transforming Early Years Education in Ethiopia

We know that around the world one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is the opportunity of a life-changing education. Each year in our schools in Ethiopia, we welcome 80 children who join us in Kindergarten. They are from the poorest families in their communities, many of them have heart-breaking stories, and without a place in one of our schools, and the support of sponsorship, most would not have the opportunity to go to school at all.

A container full of resources

A small team of teachers from Northern Ireland, alongside our Ethiopian staff, put together a proposal to transform our Kindergarten classroom environments, which included the provision of new classroom furniture and resources to support a play-based approach to learning. These resources, alongside school uniforms, computers were carefully packed into a shipping container to be transported to Ethiopia. We were incredibly thankful to the generous donors who made the container and the excellent resources inside possible.

When the container reached customs in Ethiopia, although we had all the paperwork in place, we were were met with many barriers to getting it released. Brook, our Bethany Project Director, reflected on the container's journey after it's momentous arrival.

“Through all the hassle it took ages but all these delays were for one big moment to happen. I wanted to share with you now that God did all these delays for a purpose and we might call it a delay, but for God it wasn’t and he is doing everything for good. We could only see what our naked eyes could see but God planned it all and completed it in a way that saved lots of money for our kids. And above all what I can say or tell the story for people about the container is about how God made it all possible”.

Training together

At Easter we had the enormous privilege of sending our team of teachers from Northern Ireland to Ethiopia to take this wonderful project to the next stage. The team delivered 5 days of training, helping our 9 staff members from Bethany School and Abdi Academy to explore how to best use these wonderful resources.

Together they explored the value of play-based learning and focused on how the new resources would support children’s learning in numeracy, literacy, imaginative role play, construction and outdoor play.

Our Ethiopian staff had already been doing an incredible job of creating a positive learning environment for our smallest children by creating and developing their own handmade resources, crafting items from paper, card, and recycled materials and displaying children’s work around the classrooms. This served to create a wonderful foundation on which we were able to build. There was great excitement at the new resources that would further enhance what our Ethiopian Kindergarten teachers were already doing and help develop and foster the creativity and imagination of our youngest learners. On seeing the classrooms for the first time, one of our staff members shared that, “there is nothing like this anywhere in Ethiopia". Now we are delighted that it will provide our youngest Stand by Me kids the best start to their education not just this year, but for many years to come.

Exploring the new classroom

At the end of the week we welcomed some of our Stand by Me kids into their new classrooms. Aster, one of the staff, shared "we could read the happiness on their faces". Already, just a few weeks in, our staff have observed the benefits for our children. The chairs and tables are a much more suitable size and more conducive to group learning. The opportunity to write on individual blackboards and whiteboards has improved children’s pencil skills and writing, while using pegboards and completing jigsaws have helped to develop fine motor skills. There is even greater enthusiasm among the children to learn, to explore and share the wonderful new resources in their classrooms.

It's thanks to the support of our incredible supporters, the skills of the fantastic teaching team and the determination of our Bethany School and Abdi Academy teachers that our children in Ethiopia have the best possible start to their education and a foundation from which we hope they will continue to flourish and reach their potential.

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