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Mother’s Welfare Group – Child-to-Child Network
Address: PO Box 5043, Kaduna
Tel: +234 62 216 173
E-mail: mud@infoweb.abs.net
Contact Name: Kathryn Barrera
The group reports:
Organisation
“In 1980, nursery schools were established in Kaduna Town. In 1989, schools, women's groups, children's clubs were established in Kaduna state. The school curriculum uses the Child-to-Child method, the Child-to-Child readers, activity sheets and materials. The children's clubs have developed a girl guide book based on Child-to-Child. The funding for our activities is provided by CAFOD, UNICEF and the Bernard Van Leer Foundation. Other than funding, our partners also provide resource materials, training and conference facilities. They also sometimes monitor and evaluate the activities.
Currently, there are approximately 30 schools and 5,000 children involved in our Child-to-Child project. The children are aged between 3-18 years of age. There are also young women (aged 15-25 years) and mothers (of all ages) involved in the project. The children include disadvantaged rural children and disabled urban children. Our adult workers are villagers who have been trained to teach in the schools and provide primary health care, as well as professional teachers and health workers themselves.
Child-to-Child Activities
Our main aims are to improve the health and general living standards of women and children, integrate literacy with health messages, and provide an appropriate, affordable and interesting learning environment. In general, our project work also involves the promotion of children's rights and improving the lives of women.
Child-to-Child activities are introduced through classroom teaching and through girl guides. The approach is also introduced through primary health care outreach sessions, women's literacy classes and during training sessions. Children are encouraged to think for themselves. All schools have three activities each year, with activities based on home and community. In order to encourage children's participation we use the Child-to-Child six-step approach. We try to develop a number of competencies in children, for example, identifying cases of diarrhoea, making ORS, care of wounds, care of people with fever, cooking nutritious meals, as well as promoting good social skills and reading skills. All of these activities are designed to help children to think things through and to plan. Our activities are school based. At present, 30 schools are involved in the project. Health is taught across the curriculum in our schools, for example, in maths and in science. Mothers are involved in our activities through their women's groups. Additionally, the community often attends dramas put on by the children.
Working Together
The basis of our Child-to-Child work is that 'all teachers do health' and 'all health workers teach'. Consequently, there is close interaction between education and health in our project.
Monitoring and Evaluation
We hold evaluation meetings every month. The Child-to-Child components of our project are evaluated twice per year. As a result of our activities, we have moved from 0% literacy to 80% literacy, 40% for older girls and women. We have also noticed improved health, including a reduced incidence of deaths due to diarrhoea, childhood illnesses, and deaths from pneumonia. Additionally, some of our children now go on to secondary school, whereas previously this was not necessarily the case.
Training
Teachers, health workers, women's leaders and other development workers all receive training. The trainers are members of our staff, who were themselves trained by Dr Catherine Gana of the Health Development Agency (see separate entry in this directory). The content of training sessions is focused on Child-to-Child methods, and participatory teaching and learning methods. Much use is made of visual aids and practical activities when working with trainees.
Materials :
We use all of the Child-to-Child Trust materials which are currently available. Additionally, we have translated ten of the Child-to-Child readers into Hausa. Ten more are to be formally proofed. We have developed our own materials and are constantly developing new materials to accompany the Child-to-Child readers. These materials include workbooks, worksheets, posters and guidebooks etc.”
The activities of the group have recently been written up in the Child-to-Child Trust’s book Early Years Children Promote Health, London: Child-to-Child, 2004 (produced with help from the Bernard Van Leer Foundation).
Date: 2005
Source: Mother’s Welfare Group
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