Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National Level

Dear classmates,

My ECE community is recent. The early childhood policy is dated in the year 2011 with an emphasis on eradication of poverty and nutrition especially in rural areas. The National ECD Program is centered on the eradication of malnutrition even if other areas of early childhood development are also being developed.
As said in my previous blog post, the roles one can take in my community would be in the National ECD Program, in the ECD section of UNICEF and in the non government organization Imbuto Foundation, which are on the top of institutions acting in this field.
Currently, these organizations do not have available jobs opportunities.
I would be interested in being a consultant for the ECE in my community, by helping ECD centers, in the urban areas, train their caregivers based on the knowledge acquired with my masters courses, waiting for any job opportunity.

Exploring Roles in the Early Childhood Development Community: Local and State Levels

My country Rwanda mainly have three local and state organizations that are in charge of the Early Childhood Field:

1.      The National Early Childhood Development Program (NECPD) has the general mission to coordinate all interventions that support adequate early childhood development for children, from their conception to 6 years of age, as outlined in the ECD policy. The National ECD Policy and a five-year Strategic Plan were revised in 2016, and costed and endorsed by the Cabinet in May 2016. These two policies set out key cross sectoral interventions covering child health and nutrition, access to safe water and sanitation, hygiene, early childhood education, child protection and social protection. These interventions aim to develop ‘children’s full sensory-motor, social-emotional and cognitive-language potential from conception to the age of six years (Unicef, 2018, p.33).

2.      The “Imbuto Foundation” through which was created in 2013 by her Excellency Mrs Jeannette Kagame the Early Childhood Development and Family program, to support the holistic development of children aged 0 to 6 years old. The goal of the program is to ensure that children are intellectually stimulated, healthy and safe, while their families and communities are trained to become nurturing caregivers.
The ECD&Family program is implemented in the following approaches:
• Early Childhood Development centers (3 to 6 years old)
• Home-based services (3 to 6 years old)
• Home-visits (0 to 3 years old)
Through this project:
• 16 functional ECD centers have been established in 15 Districts,
• Over 14,000 children have enrolled in the established ECD centers (Imbuto Foundation, 2019).

3.      The Unicef supported the Government of Rwanda in developing its ECD Policy and Strategic Plan in 2011 which aims to promote the holistic development of all children in Rwanda through the provision of integrated health, nutritional, early stimulation and learning, and protection services to families, communities and children between 0 to 6 years (Unicef, 2019).

At the present time, there is no job opportunities available in these organizations. There are very few consultants in this field. I think I would want to become one in the objective to teach caregivers in different early childhood development settings in the urban areas.

References

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Rwanda, 2018. National Early Childhood Development Program.

https://www.unicef.org/rwanda/RWA_resources_sitansummary.pdf

Imbuto Foundation, 2019

http://www.imbutofoundation.org/-Education-Programmes-.html

Unicef, 2019

https://www.unicef.org/rwanda/ecd.html

Welcome to my blog

Dr Lucia and classmates,

Welcome to my blog.
I am glad to be with you on this journey for the well- being of children.

Marlene.