ECCD Mobile Videos ENHANCHING EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND DEVELOPMENT VIA MOBILE VIDEOS Plan Uganda By: Ojara Remmy George Akena [email protected] The importance of promoting children’s development in early years is generally not well understood in rural areas in Eastern and Southern Africa. Studies indicate that the majority of children under eight years are not developing to their full potential due to poor health and nutrition, and lack of learning opportunities. 2 Plan wants to strengthen the capacity of local communities in several Eastern and Southern African Countries to support children’s development in early years. The goal is to enable all children between 3-6 years to participate in quality early childhood care and development programs. These programs promote the cognitive, social, emotional and psychomotor development of children. 3 On the practical level parents and community facilitators receive training on good practices for taking care of young children. However, Plan’s previous experience has shown that this training does not guarantee that new practices will be adopted. It takes more than knowledge or even belief to change existing practices. 4 Mobile Videos for ECCD In parallel, Plan is piloting the use of mobile videos in rural in communities. These communities do not have grid electricity or existing equipment for showing videos during the trainings. • Was funded with support from Nokia Finland. • It aimed at testing the relevance, usefulness, and impacts of using videos in supporting ECCD goals • Plan piloted the use of mobile videos in rural communities which are lacking grid electricity and existing equipment for showing videos during the ECCD trainings. 5 Plan Uganda has developed an award winning Community Led Action For Children (CLAC) approach to early childhood care and development, which this pilot project is supporting with Nokia funding. 6 Benefits Derived Observing good practices for child raring through videos. has:• Brought training materials to life • Made them real for participants • Built confidence of parents and caregivers to try new practices learnt 7 • • • It has given caregivers & parents opportunity to watch for and comment on practices that does not meet standards advised in training. It also replaced the need for visiting other areas to see a range of practices (an expensive and time consuming option) Increased opportunities for sharing and discussing problems – e.g classroom control, effective facilitation of parenting sessions. For example, at parenting meetings trainers can show footage of positive discipline on how to set boundaries for children which work better than beating. Other practices which can be shared can be how to make toys from items that are part of the household or examples of games and play that builds learning capacity in small children. 9 The first set of video content was produced in Uganda by a professional film group CWC. However, the local Plan staff s have also been trained to use mobile phones to record and edit instructional videos that will be complementing the existing video materials. 10 • What is Community Led Action For Children and how does it work in Uganda • Experiences Plan Uganda’s Parenting Program • Plan Uganda’s Early childhood care and development • Primary school observation checklist • Parenting Observation Checklist • Early childhood care and development classroom checklist • Home Visit Checklist • Transitions/Primary school checklist • What key skills do parents need in supporting their children • What supports do children need most. • What do young people need most 11 The primary users of the solution and the team involved in its implementation Users of the solution • ECCD Community Volunteers for one-on-one training and guidance with parents and caregivers • ECCD Community Volunteers for small group sessions with parents/caregivers • ECCD staff (this is project staff and volunteer training) for group training and reflection • ECCD staff and Community Volunteers for self-study and reference Teams supporting the Implementation • Filming team from Australia (CWC) • ICT Manager • ECCD project staff • Caregivers Limitations of the innovation Modifications Made • Internet Connectivity. Computer to phone direct video files transfer, to save the cost and time in downloading via internet server • Limited battery power of the mini projectors. We improvised a solar based power solution • Lighting challenge. Showing videos in halls with limited direct sun light. • Limited video content to match the training needs Used mobile phones to capture relevant footages that can be used to facilitate their training and reflection session • Technology adoption by the users especially community volunteers – fear of the unknowns Peer to peer support by volunteers, continuous trainings, encouraged caregivers have enough time with the equipment • Availability of the equipment in the local markets Work with other Plan national offices (Plan Finland, US etc) The business model for sustaining use of the solution over time • • • • Enhance Already existing CLAC model (Award winning) Free to use library of videos, can be translated to suite audience from different geographic location Replicable model – presented in Kenya during the 2013 Nokia innovation trip in Nairobi, and the Finland MFA framework ECCD in Uganda is not a priority to the gov’t. So it’s adoption by gov’t is still questionable. For more information you can contact: www.plan-international.org My email: [email protected] Office tel: +256-41-305000 Videos link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReShBnqw4 _w&list=PLnWi6dySQxR4mNDTSe60iQuonrgZDc Xxv&index=1
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