Vocational Training Teams Give Kids An Edge

By Dan Nixon 
Rotary International News — 2 June 2011

Vocational training teams from Rustenburg, South Africa (District 9400), and Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA (District 7980), have discovered that their communities share surprisingly similar challenges when it comes to early childhood education.

“Both areas face similar hardships of poverty, disintegrating families, poor health, and low parental and childhood literacy,” says Barbara Welles-Nystrom, associate professor of early childhood education at Fairfield University in Connecticut, who led the U.S. team’s visit to South Africa in January. The South African team traveled to the United States in March.

The teams of early childhood educators, both sponsored by Future Vision pilot districts, learned firsthand about the challenges of teaching young children in rural villages near Rustenburg and in urban Bridgeport, and shared best practices in areas including preschool curriculum, facilities, and community support. Funded by a US$35,625 Rotary Foundation Global Grant, the project will also include online teacher training. It supports the basic education and literacy area of focus.

The U.S. team visited seven preschools run by the Royal Bafokeng Institute, which was established by the Royal Bafokeng Nation to support early childhood education in its ethnic homeland.

“With our South African colleagues, we had many exchanges of ideas [on] how to develop better leadership and management of early childhood education programs that will benefit children and their families, including children at risk, so that all children will be better prepared for formal education,” says Welles-Nystrom, a member of the Rotary Club of Fairfield, outside Bridgeport. “We have learned about the challenges facing our colleagues in respect to HIV/AIDS and the difficult situations regarding substandard housing and hygiene, as well as the general poverty of families in the area.”