The Yizani Sifunde Project, initiated and funded by the Liberty Trust, has transformed the lives of thousands of children, adults and Early Childhood Development (ECD) practitioners in the Eastern Cape.
Launched in 2021 to enhance early literacy outcomes in under-resourced ECD centres, the three-year project was jointly designed and implemented by three renowned literacy nonprofits — Book Dash, Nal’ibali, and Wordworks.
Yizani Sifunde means “Come, let’s read”.
After three years, the Yizani Sifunde project has now come to an end, celebrating great success.
It was aimed at improving the language and literacy of children from four to five years of age through different interventions at ECD centres, homes, and within communities.
Its key initiatives included promoting access to high-quality reading materials and providing training and support for ECD practitioners, caregivers and community members.
Organisations including Khuleka and ITEC also supported its implementation.
Nal’ibali communications and marketing manager Suri Tsholetsane said when children started school without adequate early language and literacy skills, they were likely to struggle throughout their school careers.
Tsholetsane said one of major challenges in SA was that many children started schooling without having acquired basic learning skills at home or in their communities.
She said since the project’s inception, it had successfully reached more than 1,200 children through reading clubs, 7,600 community members, 126 ECD practitioners, 30 youth, and 500 parents and caregivers.
“The consortium collectively distributed nearly 239,000 Book Dash books and 83,679 supplemental reading materials from Nal’ibali.
“Over the three-year period, the project meaningfully impacted communities around Komani and East London.
“Specifically, the project directly engaged 126 early childhood development centres, benefiting 3,023 children,” she said.
Tsholetsane said the programme had ended on a highly positive note, with measurable success.
“An independent evaluation, led by Social Impact Insights Africa, revealed that children who participated in the project demonstrated significantly improved literacy, language, fine motor and executive functioning skills.
“Performance in numeracy and mathematics also improved, even though the project focused on literacy.
“On average, children participating in the project were found to have gained four to six months of additional learning beyond what is expected within the eight months during which they were observed.
“At the end of the project, the participating children performed significantly better than the provincial average despite their very low socioeconomic backgrounds,” she said.
Head of research, impact and innovation at Nal’ibali, Dr Gabrielle Kelly, said: “The project took an ecosystem approach by equipping and mentoring adults to provide joyful reading experiences and act as reading role models to children in ECDs, homes and other community settings.
“Increasing the supply of reading opportunities motivated children to demand more stories, with the shared enjoyment of reading together creating a positive feedback loop that reinforced reading in homes.”
Wordworks’ monitoring, evaluation and learning consultant Dr Magali von Blottnitz said the unity among stakeholders had ensured the project’s success.
“This project’s impact could not have been achieved with the classroom programme alone, so it has been exciting to watch how the shifts in the ECD centres and in the homes have worked to reinforce each other for the benefit of the children.
“We also placed great emphasis on ensuring sustainability of the impact, and were pleased to see that even after the project had exited certain communities, the classroom activities were still taking place and the resources were taken care of.”
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