Millions of children in Ethiopia, particularly in rural areas, don’t have the possibility to go to school. Families with insecure livelihoods are often forced to compromise the education of their children. Seemingly small costs like exercise books and uniforms become prohibitive and there is work for children to do both at home and outside it. CHADET supports street-associated and working children in urban areas and vulnerable children in rural areas with their education in order to protect them from risky migration and exposure to more challenges in cities.
One of CHADETs projects that addresses this issues is the Children and Community Development Project (CCDP), co-funded by Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC). The programme is designed to improve access to quality education and food security for disadvantaged children in the Woliso district.
General information
Project area: Oromia National Regional State, South-West Shoa Zone, Four Kebele in Woliso Town and 4 rural Kebeles in Woliso Woreda: Fodu Gora,Obbi,Bedesa Koricha & Dilela kebeles or districts
Project duration: January 2013 to December 2016
Total project costs: 7,468,923.89
Funding partner: Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC)
Beneficiaries: 600 vulnerable children; 716 mothers in self help groups and saving and credit cooperatives, and other key stakeholders like schools.
Project Objectives
• Girls and boys in the project communities have access to quality early child hood care, primary and lower secondary education
• Improve the house hold food security and address the general nutritional need of children and families in the project target areas.
• Improve the capacities of CHADET to have sound policies and procedures, guidelines and manuals that facilitate proper implementation of planned activities
To address the various challenges that children in Ethiopia face, CCDP consists out of four core programs, each targeting a different group. The Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE) project is designed to support the youngest children, the primary and lower secondary education programme supports students going to school, the security (livelihood) program assists parents of vulnerable househoulds and the last program focuses on capacity building of implementing partners.
1. Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE)
Early childhood is a time of remarkable transformation and extreme vulnerability. The early years of life are crucial not only for individual health and physical development, but also for cognitive and social-emotional development. It is a significant stage in life that lays the foundation for later learning.
Because many children in Ethiopia lack opportunities to gain access to early childhood education, CHADET established the Early Childhood Care Education programme (ECCE) as one of the core programs within the Children and Community Development Project. The key objective is to enable girls and boys (up to the age of eight) in the project community’s to reach their full potential by supporting families and communities, and by increasing access to quality early childhood care and education. Currently, the programme is operating in Amhara and Oromiya Regional states.
ECCE sub-objectives:
1. Girls and Boys have access to safe and favorable learning environments
2. Children experience quality teaching in ECCE centers
3. Community inclusive management of ECCE centers exist
The promotion of ECCE has proven to lead to higher enrollments (particularly of girls), improvement of the overall quality of education and a reduction of dropouts and repetition rates in later stages of formal schooling.
2. Support for Primary and Lower Secondary Education
CHADET is working towards enhancing access to quality education for boys and girls across all its intervention areas. Over the past years CHADET has been supporting children in various ways to be able to pursue their education.
Primary Education Sub-Objectives:-
• Good teaching and learning environments.
• Gender based violence and harmful traditional practices are removed as barriers to education for girls.
• Good school management and governance.
Provision of scholastic support
One of the reasons for many children for not being able to continue their education is lack of scholastic materials such as uniforms, exercise books, pens, pencils, etc.
Provision of reading materials
CHADET has been working to its best for the improvement of quality of education at primary level and supported six primary schools with optimal number of reading materials. Reading Clu
bs were established to improve the reading culture of children in Woliso. Moreover, CHADET has a library and playground at its Wolliso Coordination office and at the drop-in-center in Addis Ababa that is open to all children in the community. In order to enhance the participation of children in different extracurricular activities, school clubs were strengthened in all the schools where children supported by the projects of CHADET.
3. Food Security (livelihood) program
In order to alleviate the challenges that children are faced with, CHADET believes that it is essential to work towards improving the livelihoods of their parents and guardians. Hence, an economic strengthening component is built across all projects of CHADET. The household economic improvement programs take different forms, including the establishment and strengthening of Self Help Groups (SHG) and Saving and Credit Cooperatives (SACCO) depending on the context.
Food Security Sub-Objectives:
• Households are organized into SHGs and SACCOs.
• Improved skills in businesses management, development and urban agriculture.
Self Help Groups
Self Help Groups (SHGs) are informal associations, consisting of 15-20 members of the low-income bracket that are organized to collectively work for the improvement of their household income in particular and the social development of their village in general. SHGs have proven to positively affect the situation of the children and other family members involved.
In 2014, CHADET organized sixteen SHGs in the Fogera Woreda in South Gondar, with over 160 parents participating. A total amount of ETB 80,000 was made available as seed money for the different groups, which assisted them in engaging in various income generating activities.
In Woliso, around 350 economically unstable mothers were organized in to four saving and credit associations and two self-help groups, while an addition of one hundred members of previously established SHGs were given basic business skill training.
Saving and Credit Cooperatives
CHADET organizes Saving and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) to assist mothers of vulnerable households in Ethopia. Participants of the project receive Basic Business Skill training and book keeping workshops, to teach them about the opportunities, best practices and risks of saving, lending and starting a business. Furthermore, efforts have been made to link the groups with different government agencies that provide access to credit and technical support.
Currently, there are more than 744 mothers participating in different projects of the SACCOs. The mothers involved receive different business related training by different institutions, including an introduction to micro-finance.
4) Capacity Building: CFTC? and Partners have adequate organizational capacity
Capacity Building Objective:
• Ensuring the implementing partners have strong operational capacity.
The fourth component is directed at the CFTC and the implementing partners of all the of the CCDP projects and is designed to evaluate progress, to discuss best practices and lessons learned and review the results. Capacity building is strengthened through the participation of the staff in different trainings, the organization of evaluation rounds, monitoring visits, attending of review workshops and regular meeting to discuss progress, successes and failures.