1. Roles & Responsibilities:

• Regularly monitor donor websites to match opportunities and the work of the organisation
• Contribute to ELRU website with regular updates about organisation’s work
• Consult with the Director and other staff in writing concept notes and project proposals and ensure their timely submission
• Undertake independent research and suggest ideas for effective resource mobilisation and long-term financial sustainability for ELRU
• Maintain high levels of trust and confidentiality supporting and protecting ELRU in a competitive environment.
• Seek and create opportunities to positively communicate ELRU’s mission to funders, donors and related stakeholders to enhance ELRU financial sustainability.
• Reports to the Director and works closely and collegially with all ELRU managers.

2. Education and Qualifications

• Business, marketing-related degree or equivalent professional qualification or experience
• Experience in developing client and funding relationships.
• Technical marketing skills.
• Experience with budget development.
• Proven experience in proposal writing.
• Experience with relevant software application (word and excel.
• Knowledge of the development sector, education sector and early childhood will be advantageous.

3. Key Competencies

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, organisation and planning, persuasiveness, adaptability, judgement and innovation.

ELRU offers a medical allowance, pension fund contribution, a 13th cheque and a generous leave package.

Forward your CV along with contactable references to bealah@elru.co.za. Please note if you are not contacted within two weeks of your submission, its means you have not been shortlisted.

The closing date for application is 31 May 2012.

ELRU recalls how in the 1980s, together with fellow community activists in Chatsworth, Durban, he contributed to endeavours for early childhood learning, particularly through the mobile library initiative to support reading and literacy in poor communities.

We respect his spearheading of early childhood development policy for the mass democratic movement and the ANC.

ELRU believes that the outreach to the majority (70%) of children, aged 0-4 years, who are not in early learning centres, require mobile models ¬– be they libraries and play centres on wheels or Family Community Motivators (FCM) on foot, to reach the children in home-based care.

ELRU respects the valuable contribution Minister Padayachie has made in particular to the lives of children and to change in South Africa.

May he rest in peace!

Child under nutrition is a serious threat to children’s ability to develop and learn.

Feedback from ECD practitioners tell us just how important the food provided at ECD centres is for the children who attend especially in poor communities
where children may receive little additional food at home. This means that it is really important for centres to provide good nutrition.

While it is not enforced, the general guideline for centres receiving the Department of Social Development subsidy is that about 50% of the subsidy should go to food, 30% to salaries and 20% to other expenses.

We compare the costs in April 2012 and February 2011 of ingredients for menus provided for ECD centres by the Nutrition Directorate in the Department of Health.  These were based on cheap, nutritious foods which provide 50% of the child’s recommended daily allowance – breakfast, lunch and two snacks.  Ingredients were priced at the cheapest chain stores in the Cape Town Metropolitan area.

The table gives the average of four menus.

There will of course be regional variations and the cost of cooking fuel and the time of the cook is not included in this costing.

This means that the R15 per child per day subsidy would be sufficient to provide for children’s nutritional needs.   However, we know that many non- profit centres serving poor children do not receive a subsidy because they are not registered or departmental budgets are limited.     The recent ECD Public Expenditure Tracking Study found that centres in the poorest areas spend about a quarter of their income on food, but this was less than R 2 per child per day in 2008/9.

We need to encourage centre supervisors and committees to ensure that nutritious meals are provided, even though we understand the challenge for centres of meeting their salary bill and other expenses.  We also need to assist centres in poor communities to comply with registration requirements that will enable them to access the subsidy.

Ingredients

If you would like a copy of the menus contact research@elru.co.za

In order for the gains at Grade R level to achieve the best outcomes for children, it is imperative that an informed child development perspective be adopted in planning and provision.  Scale up programmes must be designed with the dire situation of our youngest children in mind.  To provide more and more for Grade R and higher grades whilst continuing to fail to provide quality for infants would be counterproductive, and urgent attention should be given to the disparity in remuneration for teachers.  Currently provision is made for Grade R teachers to earn between R5000 and R8000, whereas on average teachers of younger children, irrespective of qualifications, are dependent on fees paid by families and earn between R200 and R500.

An investment should be made in raising the status of the increasing numbers of teachers qualifying at Levels 4 and 5 who work with babies and children up to 3 years. These teachers need to be skilled and motivated in order to maximise learning at the stage of the most rapid brain development. In addition programmes for children out of centres need to have a strong cognitive development focus, and appropriately trained and supported ECD practitioners.

The emphasis placed on health and safety of young children by the Children’s Act is rightly played out in the focus of the Department of Social Development. However, whilst this drives compliance with health and safety standards for registration and subsidy purposes it could contribute to the neglect of cognitive and holistic development.

The quality audit coordinated by ELRU for the Department of Social Development in 2010 drew attention to the already very poor quality of service for babies in centres. This is a matter of grave concern given that these children are in the most critical period of their lives for brain development.

ELRU’s response is a strong emphasis on leadership development including personal development and the development of confidence in those working with the youngest children.  Our aim is to reach more people through direct teacher development, teacher mentoring and training of trainers, and to influence and involve key people at local, provincial and national levels to invest in the youngest children.

However, a reality and a mark of success of our work is that where community based teachers gain qualifications and demonstrate good practice, career opportunities open for them. Primary schools take up good practitioners who have had the advantage of well supported implementation at community schools.  The downside is that community schools are often left with fewer qualified staff, and as the greatest attention has been focused on teachers of older children (4-5years) it is yet again the younger children who are left with less.

The Early Learning Resource Unit 23/2/2012

We wish you a happy holiday and a wonderful new year and look forward to being in touch again soon.

ELRU will be closing from the 15th December 2011 and will re-open on the 16th January 2012.
Regards from the ELRU team

For many women and families, there seems to be no difference between peacetime and war time experiences. Guns ( and in South Africa, knives, pangas and knobkerries) pervade our lives, threaten us in our bedrooms and living rooms, in schools and on our streets. When they are not physically present, such weapons threaten us through the programmes on TV, in newspaper articles, and computer war games.

In South Africa, tax payer’s hard earned money, which we would like to see utilised for development and reducing poverty, is spent in corrupt deals , illegal and unnecessary arms expenditure and providing security often for warlords in other countries.

The annual 16 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women, allows all freedom loving people to collectively pause and give attention in our minds and hearts to what it is that causes violence against women and what we as a society must do in our own homes, streets, neighbourhoods and organisations to ensure that we never become apathetic to the gut wrenching cries of women in the dark of night or to their whimpering in pain while the sun shines and daily chores and activities continue!

Against this background, there will always be committed individuals and groups in society, who will not allow the violence of both the idea and implements of force and war, whether it is physical, emotional, psychological, cultural or structural, to weaken our resolve to end violence and the war industry that is created through an economic system based on militarism i.e. the idea that a standing army is necessary and “that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests “.

ELRU counts itself among this hopeful movement and recommits itself to ensuring that children have the chance to imagine peace and to know that they have the right to “freedom from want, freedom from fear and freedom to choose”.

We can all start by committing to:

• Refraining from buying a child a gun as a “gift” to play with as if it is capable of giving children joy
• raising peacekeepers or “keepers of the peace”, rather than soldiers
• bringing an end to the use of children in war either as soldiers, human shields or collateral damage
• teaching respect for all human beings.

The work of ELRU supports deeply poor care givers, predominantly women, in their responsibility for children’s early development. Mindful of the trauma of poverty, the feminisation of under development and the physical, psycho-social and spiritual toll on poor women in South Africa, we call on the South Africa government to make real its promise to be a developmental state, to ensure that compulsory military conscription remains a thing of the past and the idea of a Peace Corps be actively and publicly discussed and established. Imagine what a Peace Corps could contribute to raising literacy and numeracy levels in this country!

Alison Lazarus

ELRU Director

Apart from being a highly accomplished practitioner in critical  areas related to our work,  Alison is a warm, feisty and purposeful  woman who brings  fresh perspectives and energy .

Please join us in welcoming her to the field.

Click to read Alison’s profile here.

The ELRU team

It has taken my group of children to another level.

They have learned so many ideas, new words and changed the way blocks are packed. They are crazy about the whole new block corner layout, with different materials.

Even girls these days are starting to have great interest integrating blocks with the fantasy play area. Boys are building their new forest houses (ibhoma) using blocks, paper covering with cloth all over.

They have new games outside using tins, cylinders, long ropes, crawling in and out of caves, and lots more.

We thank you very much for this fun discovery – hoping to get more in the next issue magazine.

Yours Faithfully

M.D Tyulu – A. Nyanga (Teachers)
St Anthony’s Pre-school
Langa

Little Bright Stars Educare, Heideveld

Since the premises were rented, it was decided to use containers to plant vegetables, herbs and soil improver plants. Mulching and composting formed part of the gardening project.

Nurjaha advising Grace

Grace involved parents, her preschool learners and teachers in collecting and painting containers in preparation for planting their gardens.

As part of their training the principals were taught the principles of permaculture and encouraged to plan their indoor and outdoor gardens.

Nurjaha, the ELRU permaculture advocate, gave Grace the reasons why some of the plants had flourished more than others and how to get the most out of the garden.

Next we visited Kamva Educare in Philippi.

The principal of Kamva Educare, Noloxolo and her assistant Thabile, were surprised when Nurjaha showed them that some of their vegetables were ready to be harvested.

Noloxolo and Thabile harvesting radishes

They dug up some radishes, washed and tasted them for the first time.

Nurjaha showed them how the permaculture principle of intensifying and multi-functioning worked – the space previously used for growing radishes was now clear to accommodate carrots.

Upon further checking, they found that a huge turnip was also ready to be harvested from the vegetable patch.

Noloxolo inspecting turnip

Noloxolo described how parents had become involved in conversation around the vegetable patch and how she was planning to share the knowledge she had gained from her training.

Nurjaha recommended that Noloxolo and the preschool teachers use her garden as a teaching tool in the classroom.