Daraja Early Care and Education

The mission of our Daraja program is to provide a new framework for addressing early childhood care in Kenya.

Daraja is the Swahili word for “bridge,” and we believe this name is symbolic of the project’s mission,

ICRI-Africa has been working with vulnerable communities for the past 3 years and saw a great need to develop programs that provide a holistic child development approach, for children 0-8 years. The Daraja program provides teachers with alternative approaches to teaching that are more engaging for children and that provide children with an activity-driven learning environment. Some of our achievements in the last 15 months include:

• Use of circle time using mats in all the sites
• Development and display of daily schedules for each program
• Establishment of learning corners that provide a variety of activities for the children
• Display and documentation of children’s work
• Replacement of corporal punishment with use of positive reinforcements
• We have touched the lives of four hundred children
• Trained forty teachers
• Facilitated feeding programs in two sites
• Established hand-washing through donation of hand washing tanks and soap in all sites
• Division of children according to their ages into manageable groups
• Training teachers how to use locally found objects and local materials
• Use of music and movement in the classroom

Our findings show that children are now enjoying learning and that the teachers are feeling more involved in teaching than they did before. Caregivers and teachers have learned how to work with children using play, dance, storytelling, art and other methodologies needed to assure that children become creative learners