Move 4 New Horizons - A holistic educational approach for disadvantaged children and youth in Nepal
The four program components serve the following purpose: (1) Research shows that effective ECD is key to a person’s success in education, professional life and good health in adulthood; therefore the “return on investment� of promoting effective ECD is very high. Building on the scientific finding that movement and play are crucial to healthy growth and the developing of motor, social, cognitive and emotional skills, the ECD-component of the Move 4 New Horizon project will focus on building children’s competencies through a playful teaching approach and thus provide them with the best possible start into their education. (2) The teaching approach of the NFE-classes is interactive and child-friendly as well as based on sport and play. The project's success during the pilot phase shows that this approach effectively meets the specific learning requirements of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and significantly increases their “school readiness� (see above). (3) Children age 11-18 participating in community-based Child Clubs or school-based Youth Clubs will be supported in one of the most crucial steps of their formal education: in the process of developing a vision for their professional future and to be guided by skill building to raise capacities. Based on the increased self-confidence, inner strength and motivation to overcome the multiple obstacles of the challenging Nepali environment, children will be trained in vocations producing goods needed in their immediate surroundings (market demand). Which practical skills will be offered is being assessed by a data collection process and in discussion local stakeholders. It is likeliy that the vocational training will focus on the production of local produce and on service provision such as repair and maintenance of of all sorts of goods (e.g. bicycles, mobile phones, etc.). Parents of children likely to drop out of school at a very early age (girls around 11 and boys around 13) for lack of financial capacity or cultural reasons of early marriage are counseled prior to the dropping out of school of the children and supported by getting access to mothers’ saving groups, basic literacy classes and awareness training of the importance of education. Youth joining the vocational training program will receive a theoretical as well as practical training based on the sport and play-based approach.Desired outcome is the development of a vision to become a productive community member taking on social responsibilities for themselves and others based on a sound capacity to execute an income generating activity. Reaching a relevant number of youth educated this way, the project aims at supporting youth in becoming productive and accountable drivers of social change. (4) Caregivers – especially mothers – are essential in the process of reaching a sustainable solution for the lack of education in rural Nepal. Providing alternatives to generating familiy income by demonstrating that family income can be generated differently than regarding children as free, income generating labour, mothers will be the strongest advocates for educating their children. Allowing for improved skills and raised selfefficiency through building their economic and educational capacities (basic reading and accounting), as well as allowing for their structured input for locally conducted ECD- and NFE-classes, mothers will realize that the whole community strives. Sharing the burden of educating their children from early childhood to developing a vision for a working life with teachers and professionals in vocational training, mothers will find themselves relieved of the additional burden, but still in charge of the education of their children. Activities within the mothers’ savings and credit groups will form the basis for the much needed sustainability of the project’s activities.
Programme
