working towards best practices regional experience on

Working towards best practices

REGIONAL EXPERIENCE ON

INTEGRATED APPROACH TO EARLY CHILDHOOD

SIX CASE STUDIES

in East Asia

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UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office

19 Phra Atit RoadBangkok 10200, ThailandTel: (662) 356-9499Fax: (662) 280-3563

E-mail: [email protected] Site: www.unicef.org

Working towards best practices

REGIONAL EXPERIENCE ON

INTEGRATED APPROACH TO EARLY CHILDHOOD

SIX CASE STUDIES

IN EAST ASIA

Cover photograph: UNICEF Vietnam / Trân Quôc Khanh

Copyright: The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)East Asia and Pacific Regional Office, 2004

“Regional Experience on Integrated Approach to Early Childhood– Six Case Studies inEast Asia”

ISBN: 974-923-779-X

UNICEF EAPRO19 Phra Atit RoadBangkok 10200E-mail: [email protected]

Extracts from this publication may be freely reproduced. Accreditation would beappreciated.

The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of UNICEF.

CONTENTS i

Abbreviations ii

Preface iii

Introduction 1

Young children and their families in the region 2

Indonesia 5

Providing ‘Easy-to-do’ service packages

Lao PDR 13

Linking community development and childhood care

Myanmar 29

Developing community support networks

Philippines 39

Creating effective policies and plans

Thailand 53

Empowering communities

Viet Nam 63

Promoting family learning through effective advocacy

Reference 75

Regional Experiences on Integrated Approch to Early Childhood / i

ABBREVIATIONS

BCEC Bataan Child Empowerment CouncilCEDAW Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against

WomenCOLF Community of Learners FoundationCRC Convention on the Rights of the ChildCWC Council for the Welfare of ChildrenDepEd Department of Education (Philippines)DOH Department of Health (Philippines)DSWD Department of Social Welfare and Development (Philippines)EAPRO East Asia Pacific Regional Office (UNICEF)ECC Early childhood careECCD Early Childhood Care and DevelopmentECD Early childhood developmentECDC Early Childhood Development CentreIEC Information, education and communicationIECD Integrated early childhood developmentKAP Knowledge Attitudes and PracticesLAO PDR People’s Democratic Republic of LaoLWU Lao Women’s UnionMCH Maternal and child healthMMR Maternal mortality ratioNNC National Nutrition Council (Philippines)NSC National Statistical CentrePO Parenting OrientationPRA Participatory Rapid AssessmentTAO Tambon Authority OrganizationTOT Training of TrainersUSD US dollarsVAP Village action plansVDC Village development committeesVWU Viet Nam Women’s UnionWHO-CCPMCH World Health Organization’s Collaborative Centre for

Perinatal Care, Maternal and Child Health

ii / Six Case Studies in East Asia

PREFACE

Children’s environment and experiences, particularly in the first years of their lives, havea profound impact on their overall development, setting lifelong patterns for physical,cognitive, emotional and social development. This is the most critical period for braindevelopment, which affects progress in forming cognitive, language, social and educationalskills. It is also a time when young children face the greatest risks to their survival, healthstatus and emotional and physical growth.

Recognizing the importance of these critical early years of life and its long termconsequences, UNICEF has been actively engaged in the area of Early Childhood for manyyears; and recently, even more rigorously, following its inclusion of Early Childhood asone of the five organizational priorities for its Medium Term Strategic Plan for 2002 to2005. Through an integrated approach to Early Childhood Development (IECD), UNICEFaims to fulfil a child’s rights to the best possible start in life ensuring every child is able tosurvive and thrive.

It is also important to remember that all countries have now committed to work towardsachieving the Millennium Development Goals and the vision for a World Fit for Children.Interventions in the earliest years contribute to achieving many of these goals as well asto the regional priorities identified at the 6th Ministerial Consultation of East Asia andPacific.

In this publication, we present our home-grown experiences in East Asia and Pacificdeveloped on behalf of our region’s young children and their families and community.We intended to document some innovative aspects of IECD programming, with a criticalreview of both successes and challenges, and lessons to be used for strengthening of theprocess and activities. Thus, we do not refer to the case studies in this publication as bestpractices, but rather as examples to learn from and assist others in working towardsachievement of best practices.

We will be pleased if readers find some useful tips in the publication that may aid thedevelopment of their own projects/initiatives for Early Childhood, as well as using thesecase studies as a tool for advocacy for IECD in the region and beyond.

Lastly, we wish to thank the consultants who prepared the case studies for their excellentwork in reviewing project documents and undertaking field research. We also wish tothank the UNICEF Country Offices for coordinating their work and support.

Mehr KhanRegional Director,UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional OfficeJuly 2004

Regional Experiences on Integrated Approch to Early Childhood / iii

Regional Experiences on Integrated Approch to Early Childhood / 1

INTRODUCTION

This publication compiles six case studies from East Asia on programming for earlychildhood development. The studies were conducted in mid-2003 in respective countries,namely, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. The mainfindings were shared during UNICEF’s East Asia and Pacific Regional Forum on IntegratedEarly Childhood Development (IECD) in October 2003 in Bangkok.

This compilation shares our regional experiences on IECD with a wider audience in theregion and beyond and attempts to serve as an advocacy tool and as a technical learningsource for professionals, governments, NGOs, and all other stakeholders working in EarlyChildhood. It is hoped that readers will identity some critical factors for good programmingfrom the lessons drawn from these case studies and may apply them into their futureprogramming in this area.

Each case study features specific innovative aspects in programming for early childhooddevelopment in particular, policy development, service provision and delivery mechanisms,and communication strategy in promotion of early childhood development.

In the studies, we attempt to show various programming options in support of holisticdevelopment of the young child, emphasizing the importance of “integration”. The casestudies provide insight into how “integration” can be made to work in real situations,how it evolved in each case, and what consequences and/or benefits were attained.

The specific features of the case studies are as follows:

• Promoting early learning opportunities for disadvantaged young children throughintroduction of play-group activities into the existing health service mechanism(Indonesia);

• Developing inter-sectoral coordination mechanisms at all levels through whichefforts can be coordinated to ensure young children are at the centre of villageplanning (Lao PDR);

• Reaching out disadvantaged and vulnerable children and improving their qualityof care and nutrition through development of stronger community support networksfor young children and their families (Myanmar);

• Developing an integrated, comprehensive national policy for Early Childhood Careand Development (Philippines);

• Empowering communities to improve the care of young children in HIV/AIDS riskcommunities (Thailand); and

• Developing an integrated national communication strategy using the media topromote family learning on holistic early childhood development (Viet Nam).

2 / Six Case Studies in East Asia

YOUNG CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN THE REGION

The East Asia and Pacific region, as a whole, has made great progress in reducing povertyover the past decade with more or less steady economic growth, despite an economiccrisis in late 90’s. Many indicators for children and women have improved regionally.However, there are considerable differences in figures and conditions between countriesand between regions within countries.

In the East Asia and Pacific Region, there are more than 260 million children under the ageof eight years. Further, there are 90,000 babies born every day, making a total of around100 million children under age three living, growing and learning in the region.

In 2001, at theother end of thescale, 1.4 millionchildren in theregion died beforetheir fifth birthday.Among under- fivemortality rate, threequarters are infantdeaths, and manyof these occurduring the firstmonth of life. Thecause of which isclosely related tothe nutritional andhealth status of themother.

Malnutrition hasbeen a persistentproblem in theregion. Twentyseven millionchildren areunderweight andalmost 35 million children under five are stunted. The major cause for this is not so muchdue to lack of food, but more to do with the lack of care and health resources for mothersand children. Growth faltering (stunting/wasting) begins very early in life and will restrictcognitive and emotional development.

Many young and pregnant women are also malnourished. Children born to malnourishedmothers are at greater risk of low-birth-weight and are most likely to be stunted, creatingvicious cycle of compromised growth and development. Every year, around 40,000 motherswill die as a result of childbirth. Their deaths seriously undermine the prospects of theirsurviving infants - due to the loss of the major primary caregivers.

Integrated Early Childhood Development - the UNICEF context

UNICEF identified Integrated Early Childhood Development (IECD)as a one of its five organization priorities in its Medium Term StrategicPlan for 2002-2005.

UNICEF defines IECD as a comprehensive approach to policies andprogrammes for young children from the prenatal period to eightyears of age, thus including pregnant women, as well as their parentsand caregivers. Its purpose is to protect the child’s right to develophis or her full cognitive, emotional, social, and physical potential.

Given the fact that the nature of the early childhood development ismulti-dimensional, the IECD approach requires to coordinate allpriority actions at the institutional and policy level, by facilities andwithin families and communities, for meeting the rights of the youngchild.

The survival, growth, and development of young children depend onthree main factors:

1. The quality of household care;2. Effective access by families to quality basic services, as well as

to adequate livelihoods; and the wider community; and3. Policy environment and resources which support these.

Community-based services that meet the needs of infants and youngchildren are vital to their optimal development and they should includeattention to health, nutrition, education, and water and environmentalsanitation in homes and communities.


Access to safe water and improved sanitation remains a challenge especially in rural areasin the region. Intake of contaminated water and poor hygiene practice contributes toinfectious diseases such as diarrhoea and intestinal parasite, which will have a significantimpact on malnutrition, physical and cognitive development.

In education, the region has been very successful in terms of net primary enrolment rates,achieving regionally 97 per cent for both girls and boys by 2000 (note: there are significantdifference between countries and some countries are still at the level of around 80 to 90per cent). However, attendance rates are much lower than net enrolment rate by 10 to 25per cent, as well as high repetition and drop-outs. Not surprisingly, repetitions and drop-outs occur mostly during the lower grades (grade one and two), totalling four millionchildren who do not complete five years of primary education.

Many factors contribute to this situation - for example the child’s lack of preparation forschool and school’s lack of preparation for young children. Poor nutrition, anaemia, poorhealth, and lack of cognitive stimulation during early childhood can all make learningmore difficult for children.

The lack of parents’ desire to send their child to school can also be a factor and in somecases, young children themselves may need to take care of their younger siblings and/ordo house chores to help their busy parents.

In the region, gender inequality is evident and has impacted on many and multiple aspectsof the lives of women and children, including quality of care for young children, education,health and nutrition, violence against women, and men’s domination of decision makingprocesses and more.

There are a number of young children who require special care and support, includingthose affected by HIV/AIDS, conflict and disaster, disabled children, as well as those exposedto violence, abuse, and neglect. Special attention and support is required for thesevulnerable groups, especially when children cannot be cared for by their parents.Empowerment and provision of additional support to other family members andcommunities are required to enable to proper care of these children.


PROVIDING ‘EASY-TO-DO’ SERVICE PACKAGES

UNICEF Indonesia

INDONESIA


TANJUNGSARI INTEGRATED EARLY CHILD CARE AND

DEVELOPMENT

INDONESIA

Background

Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s most populous country, and the country that suffered perhapsthe most severely during the region’s economic crisis in the late 1990’s. The impact of theeconomic crisis in Indonesia has been long and far reaching; children as much as adultshave felt the effects of the increased financial burden on families. One indicator of this isthe decline in the survival rate among children in Indonesia. The under-five mortality rateas recorded in the 2000 Census was 44.7 per 1000 births, while 27.3 per cent of zero to fiveyear olds were found to be underweight, and 30 to 40 per cent stunted1.

Aware of the importance of child development to national development, Indonesia hastrialled a number of approaches to early child care and development. One prominentinitiative is Posyandu2, or Integrated Service Post, initiated in 1978 as a community nutritionprogramme. Another more recent project is the Bina Keluarga Balita, or Education forFamilies and Under-fives. Both programmes have had considerable reach in the past.

Description of the Project

This pilot project, Tanjungsari Integrated Women and Child Care and Development (WCCD),was conducted in partnership with the World Health Organization’s Collaborative Centrefor Perinatal Care, Maternal and Child Health (WHO-CCPMCH) and was implemented inchosen villages in the Sumedang district of West Java. The project started in October1999 with the primary objective of pilot-testing an integrated model of a community-based child and women care initiatives. The specific objectives of the pilot project were:

1. To empower families and communities to care for their own health and their childrenand provide a stimulating environment for young children.

2. To integrate existing health programmes into easy-to-do packages for families aswell as communities.

3. To revitalize Posyandu as place for integrated family programmes.4. To provide psycho-social stimulation and early education for preschoolers and

young children.5. To conduct early detection and early intervention for children at risk of developmental

delays.6. To promote better services by community midwives, health cadres, and health

personnel to become proactive through home visits.

The Project targets were pregnant, delivery and post-partum women, as well as childrenaged 0 to 8 years-old in the chosen villages within the sub-district of Tanjungsari. Thiswas later expanded to include the sub-districts of Sukasari and Pamulihan. Fourteen villagesout of 28 were chosen, based on their readiness to start the Project, the level ofadvancement and activeness of Posyandu implementation in the village, the competenceof local cadres, and support from village community leaders. During the implementationof the Project the target was narrowed to two to five years-old children only.1 Susenas 2000, using international definition2 A posyandu is an integrated health and nutrition outpost operated by village volunteers.


Often referred to as the “Tanjungsari Model”, the pilot is a posyandu-based service deliverymodel that integrates provision of health, nutrition and early stimulation and learning tochildren under eight years of age; while the interventions for mothers were deliveredthrough the local health centres (Puskesmas). The pilot project components consisted of:

1. Early education through the Taman Posyandu (a two to three times a weekneighbourhood playgroup) that provides three to five years-old children experiencesin socialization, gross and fine motor skills, and language development throughactivities organized by trained community volunteers or cadres;

2. Improved maternal health services through the strengthened partnership betweenthe community midwife and the dukun (traditional birth attendants) to assist mothersthrough pregnancy and birth;

3. Follow-up home visits of cadres for growth-faltering children; and4. Early detection of developmental delays and early stimulation to mitigate its negative

impact.

The strategy employed by the Project was that of a family-centred approach, whichconsiders professional, family and other sources of support as equal contributors to theactivities conducted by families to improve the health, nutrition and early education ofyoung children. The aim of the Project was to enable health workers to support and educatefamilies and children through the complementary vehicles of the Taman Posyandu, anearly education centre for young children, and the home visits.

The home visits were an essential component of the Project’s family-centred approach,particularly for those families or children with special needs. Home visiting was a way ofenabling health providers to become more proactive, in a flexible, cost-effective way,whilst providing teaching, support and monitoring of families in their area. Those withspecial needs are given priority through a referral system from existing childcare services.Not only would the referral system help reach those in greatest need, it would alsostrengthen and streamline the health delivery system in the Project areas.

Component one, the Taman Posyandu, was an early child education initiative. Its use ofthe word Posyandu in its name was designed to reflect the links between the Project’sinitiative and the existing Posyandu. The Posyandu had been designed as a focal point forcommunity participation in child development and family health and nutrition, as well asbasic health services. Unfortunately it had been declining in numbers and enrolmentssince the economic crash in 1997. Through the Taman Posyandu and a PosyanduRevitalization project launched by the Government of Indonesia, it was hoped that theservice could be revived and strengthened. The core staff of the Taman Posyandu were infact drawn from the existing Posyandu, thereby strengthening their capacity and buildingnew skills. Further, while the Posyandu only opened once a month, the new TamanPosyandu opened between two and four times a week, increasing access and services forfamilies in the Project area.

Other essential components of the Project were the child development workers who wereto conduct home visits and the Village Resilience League. The Village Resilience Leaguewas considered a “vehicle” for community participation, while the child developmentworkers, who were either specially recruited or existing field workers given special trainingin IECD, were considered as core field workers for the project and the link between healthexperts and the families and communities in the Project.


ANALYSIS OF THE PROJECT

Successes

One significant achievement during the course of the Project was the development of afamily guidance and education tool, “Nine Messages”. Nine messages were developedto advise families on health, nutrition and child development in a way that would beeasily understood by families as well as newly trained healthcare workers. The “messages”were printed on leaflets and handed out through the Taman Posyandu, with one leaflet

for each message. Themessages included guidanceon care for pregnantwomen; clean and healthyhousing; care for sickchildren; and prevention ofhome accidents. It washoped that when mothersdropped off or picked uptheir children from TamanPosyandu the leafletscould be given to them totake and read at home. Thenext day the health cadrewould ask mothers if theyhad read and understoodthe leaflet, and if needed,discussions furtherexplaining the “message”or answering questionsraised by it could beorganized.

Another set of tools wasdeveloped for earlydetection of childdevelopment. Again easeof understanding wascritical to its presentation,with two simple postersdesigned. One poster wasdesigned for a moregeneral usage, and asmaller one was designedto be used by individual

families and children. It also enabled “milestones” to be recorded in an educationachievement report every six months, so the development of a child could be trackedover a period of time. The tracking of milestones was an innovative approach at villagelevel and was later developed into an Early Detection Road-to-Health Card. One of themost successful

Figure 3. Early Detection Poster


elements of the Project was the increased understanding within villages and families ofthe importance of child development and school readiness for their children. This raisedawareness and understanding was demonstrated by an increase of four per cent inenrolments of children in Taman Posyandu’s in the villages participating in the Project.This small but significant increase was also felt in areas surrounding the Project villages,attracting children from neighbouring communities.

This increased attendance was also due to the more structured way the Taman Posyandu’swere organized. Time was provided for a number of specific activities designed to aid thechildren’s gross and fine motor development, their observation and language skills aswell as discipline. Activities included praying, singing, drawing, imitating letters, hygieneand so on. Time was also provided for free play. Parents felt that their children’s time atthe centre was well spent and also reported that their children’s regular attendance hadmade them “gaul” (better communicators and more interactive), “percaya diri - pede”(more confident), “mandiri” (more independent). Evaluators of the Project also foundthat children attending the Taman Posyandu had greater school readiness than childrennot attending.

While not all elements of the Project were able to be realized, the Project’s focus on childcare and development through an integrated approach to health, nutrition and earlyeducation was a commendable and worthy pilot. Some adjustments were made duringthe Project’s implementation, but a solid base from which to replicate and build on hasbeen achieved.

Challenges/Constraints

One of the key challenges identified during the Project was socializing the idea of child orfamily-centred development and the new concepts related to this. Many had heard of theProject, but referred to it simply as the WHO project, or by the name of Taman Posyandu,one of the components. Few were aware of more specific details of the Project or its aimto integrate early child care and development. For example, the introduction of a childdevelopment worker proved difficult, and was eventually not implemented, because of alack of awareness in communities of this new concept of child care development, andalso due to a lack of resources.

Another challenge was building the capacity of village cadres, who were trusted andimportant service providers within their communities, but as volunteers had never receiveformal training and were not familiar with IECD. In addition to needing to build the capacityof these existing service providers, gaps in overall health provision were also problematic.For example, there was a lack of developmental therapists and rehabilitation services forchildren with developmental problems. Also, as mentioned above, the training of childdevelopment workers was never able to be fully realized, due to a lack of resources. Thismeant the home visit component, while in theory an excellent approach to empoweringfamilies to assess and respond to nutrition, health and early learning concerns, also couldnot be fully realized. They were considered to be too time consuming and expensive toconduct and after an initial period early in the Project, home visits were eventually scrapped.Responsibility for educating and assisting families was shifted to the local cadres, whoseresources were already considerable stretched and were only able to interact with familiesin the somewhat limited setting of the Taman Posyandu, making individual consultations,or intensive group education, difficult to conduct.


What is most evident in the challenges faced by the Project is that support from within thecommunity for IECD was able to be galvanized, but the effectiveness of this support wasconstrained somewhat by the limited nature of the technical support and expertise ableto be utilized by the Project within villages. Limited human and financial resources meantthat local cadres with little or no experience in IECD were largely responsibly not just foroverseeing the psycho-socio stimulation of young children, but also to carry out earlydetection monitoring. This they were able to do, but what they were less able to do, wasidentify suitable interventions once developmental problems were detected. Further, thereferral system was not well prepared, with Puskesmas staff not receiving any specialtraining on how to handle referred cases, and the links between the Taman Posyandu andhealth services were limited.

“People trust us to take care of their children....although they know that we are only primaryschool graduates...”

Local cadre

However, despite the recognized need to refine and narrow the scope of the Project tomatch the resources available within villages, the empowerment and strengthened capacityof local cadres and their individual contributions was a major success of the Project. Theywere the core providers of health care and advice under the programme, as well asresponsible for facilitation/instruction in Taman Posyandu and disseminating the “NineMessages” amongst families and communities. The cadres where drawn from local healthand social programmes and given training in IECD. In many cases they were already seenas community leaders, having lived in their villages for many years. Due in large part tothe trust and support that they built in their local communities, eight out of the 14 TamanPosyandu set up under the Project are still in operation after the end of the Project, operatingentirely based on community funding and management. The sustainability of the TamanPosyandu beyond the life of the Project reflects that the Project was able to empower bothfamilies and their communities to care for their own health, and that of their children, aconsiderable success in a relatively short amount of time.

Lessons Learned

The input from villages and families was key to the programme. Villages were chosen forthe Project based in part on the degree of material support they were able to offer theProject. For example, furniture for activities, a building for the Taman Posyandu outdoorplay facilities and so on. However, as some of these material inputs were individuallyowned, particularly the building, it became difficult to sustain the inputs if owners withdrewsupport. Fortunately for the Project the demonstrable benefits of its activities drew strongsupport from local village administrations who in many cases took over responsibility forthese internal inputs, providing funds to support the Taman Posyandu, or finding ways tocombine the Taman Posyandu with existing village childcare activities.

Whilst there were some very successful elements of the Project, greater monitoring of thelevel of understanding and engagement with the project goals within the targets wouldhave been useful. For example, whilst the “Nine Messages” educational tool was anextremely innovative and successful activity at the beginning of the Project with greatpotential to effect behavioural change amongst the key Project targets, namely parents, itwas noted that after some time interest in the messages declined. This was in part a result


of lack of time for many mothers, whilst others complained that the “Nine Messages”were not enough and they wanted more messages and to continue their learning anddiscussions on good parenting. Both these explanations reflect that the messagesthemselves were well received and effective, but their mode of delivery and content neededto be more responsive to family and community needs. More effective monitoring andtimely follow-ups during the course of the Project may have made this possible.

Future Directions

All participants in the Project, including community leaders, cadres and families, recordedtheir willingness to continue their Taman Posyandus at the completion of the Project withtheir own funding. To achieve this, marketing materials, such as a brochure, were developedand money has been set aside from the village contingency funds. Talks have also beenheld with the Boards of local foundations to develop partnerships to ensure thesustainability of Taman Posyandus into the future. A Tanjunsari sub-district educationofficial has also suggested it may be possible to include some Taman Posyandu undertheir responsibility.

Although there is not yet any national policy for early child education, the Taman Posyanduis in accordance with the universal need and strategy for early child education and theopportunity to expand and scale up its coverage especially in rural areas is an attractiveone. Already there have been some positive reactions to this idea, and interest has beenshown in other provinces in Indonesia for piloting a similar project.


UNICEF Lao PDR/00277/Jim Holmes

LINKING WITH COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

AND CHILDHOOD CARE

LAO PDR


INTEGRATED EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

LAO PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

Background

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) is an ethnically diverse society with about 49different ethnic groups. It is an overwhelmingly agrarian society, with over 80 per cent ofthe population living in rural areas. In the last five years it has had a strong growth rate ofaround six per cent; however, it remains one of the poorest countries in Asia, ranking 140out of 174 countries in terms of human development.

In Lao PDR, nearly half the population is under the age of 15. Further, it has the highestpopulation growth rate in Southeast Asia, and its population is expected to double in thenext 25 years, making it clear just how important early childhood development is to thewhole community.

Over recent years, the Lao PDR has made significant progress in guaranteeing childrentheir rights to survival, but there is still much to be done in terms of the other rights ofchildren at critical stages of their lives as well as the rights of their mothers and women, ingeneral.

Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on theElimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has acceleratedprogress in ensuring the rights of children and women. The Lao PDR Constitution of 1991enshrines many of the elements of these rights. The National Commission on Mothersand Children, established by Prime Ministerial Decree in 1992, followed by ProvincialCommissions in 1993, is an example of the government policy for protecting children.

The country’s 1991 Constitution also enshrines many of these rights. Yet despite progressin many areas, the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is still the second highest in Asia, whilechildhood diarrhoea is the second biggest killer of children in the country, and is closelyassociated with parent’s lack of knowledge and poor hygiene practices.

The high MMR reflects the high fertility rate of 5.3 children per woman, the under-utilizationand poor quality of health services, and the general low status of women in the communityand family. Only 28.7 per cent of women receive antenatal care from skilled personnel(doctor, nurse, midwife) whilst only 21.4 per cent of births are attended by skilled personnel.Support to safe motherhood and breastfeeding initiatives has made very little improvementin moderate and severe protein-energy malnutrition among children which remains high.

In education, as well as health, there are serious challenges. Not more than seven percent of children have access to pre-school or early childhood education programmes. Atprimary school level enrolment, attendance and completion of primary school is low, andtransition to higher levels of education is even lower, especially for girls.


Recent Government Trends

In 2001, the 7th Party Congress made a historic decision regarding decentralization withthe aim of progressively transferring responsibility to local administrations.

Greater authority and responsibilities were delegated to provincial governors, althoughactual implementation of development activities, according to the Congress, now ultimatelyrests with villages. Specifically, the Prime Minister issued policies designating provincesas strategic development units, districts as the main planning and budgeting units, andvillages as the main implementation units.

In line with this new decentralized approach, UNICEF is working more closely with provincesduring its new Country Programme and its projects, including IECD, and where appropriate,direct agreements with local governments are being made for capacity building inmanagement, the development of local action plans and monitoring mechanisms, andreceipt of funds.

In addition to decentralization, efforts at reforming maternal and child health (MCH) andECD are being pursued to create a positive policy, resource and organizational climate forIECD. For example, although the Lao PDR Government is developing an official,comprehensive policy on IECD, there already exists an Implementation Policy for IECDwith the Lao Women’s Union that makes significant references to and establishes linkageswith other sectors to contribute to a young child’s best start in life. In addition, the LaoPDR Government has undertaken an initiative on Educational Strategic Planning: 20 Year(2001-2020), 10 Year (2001-2010) and 5 Year Development Plans for Education (August2001).

In its Education Strategic Vision for 20 years and 10 years, the overall policy on pre-schooland ECD education entails improving and increasing more crèche and kindergarten schools,improving the quality and relevance of education at all levels, and encouraging theparticipation of the private sector, parents and individuals in developing education andrecognizing schools as an important component in the national education system.


This project, “Integrated Early Childhood Development (IECD)”, was initiated throughfunding from the Netherlands Government, with funding allocated to the UNICEF EastAsia and Pacific Regional Office, and country offices in Viet Nam and Lao PDR.

The Lao PDR component developed out of previous early childhood development activities.One important lesson learned from these previous projects was the importance of linkingcommunity development more closely with early childhood development activities. Inresponse, the core strategy of this project was the development and implementation ofVillage Surveys which would review the status of both women and young children, andVillage Plans which would form the basis of IECD interventions with communities. Theother key strategy would be the use of Parenting Orientation as a basis for gettingcommunities to understand IECD better and to guide the planning process. Capacitybuilding for all levels was conducted and activities included training in parenting skillsand early childhood care, non-formal education especially for women and out-of-schooladolescent girls in income generation, latrine and water supply construction, and activities


to increase livelihoods and food security. All of these activities were designed to linkcommunity development with early childhood care.

Within the Project, two processes were to be highlighted. The first, integrated earlychildhood and community development process, aimed to build a responsive supportsystem to address the needs of the whole child. This would be achieved by promoting aholistic approach involving child health, nutrition, water and environmental sanitation,child protection and education at family and community levels. Such an approach aimedto build a firm foundation for integrating actors and their actions in the Project in terms ofassessment, analysis, resource mobilization, and action, as well as monitoring andevaluation.

The second process, integrated early childhood care, focused on improving family andcommunity care practices and the attainment of children’s rights to survival, growth,development and protection. Activities were integrated to improve household andcommunity securities, advocacy and communication, and access to quality services andcommodities. The main activity under this second process was Parenting Orientations.

Activities were carried out in five of Lao PDR’s 19 provinces. These five, Luang Namthaand Houaphan in the north, and Savannakhet, Saravane and Attapeu in the south, hadlow development indicators and a high percentage of ethnic minority peoples. The maintargets of the project were children aged zero to five years, their parents, and communityworkers and volunteers who were responsible for village IECD activities.

The villages targeted for IECD were selected by the District IECD Committee and approvedat the Provincial level. The villages selected had to meet the following criteria (agreed atthe first national IECD meeting in January 2002, Champasak province):

1. Over 50 per cent of village families are poor, that is, they do not have access to ricefor four to six months per year.

2. The net school enrolment rate is less than 60 per cent, especially for girls. In addition,school dropout and repetition rates are high (greater than 10 per cent).

3. The illiteracy rate among youth aged 13 to 18 exceeds 40 per cent.4. Though the communities are ready, they are lagging behind in development,

especially in terms of providing for the needs of young children and women.5. No opportunities exist for basic skill training.6. The village is permanent (not nomadic lifestyle) and accessible by road four months

per year.7. Knowledge of, as well as access to, basic health care is limited.8. No other such development project or activities are being undertaken.

Provincial and district level counterparts from the Lao Women’s Union, Ministry ofEducation, Ministry of Health and other relevant government agencies also benefited fromthe Project in terms of capacity building and expansion of technical knowledge on IECD,assessment and participatory rapid appraisal methods, and the process of communitydevelopment planning. The objective was to build the capacities of these persons tocontinue IECD activities in the medium- to long-term.

Within the Project there were two integrated IECD Sub-projects or components: (i) Planningand Action for Village Development, and (ii) Community-based Early Childhood Development.


PARTNERSHIPS

The maternal and child health (LWU) is the majorcoordinating body for IECD at all levels. The LWU isone of three mass organizations in Lao PDR (the othersbeing the National Youth Union and the Lao Front forNational Construction). The LWU is politically linked(Lao PDR has a one party political system) and hasthe ability to coordinate with all government agenciesat all levels in development efforts to promote therights of women and children. As a mass organization,they reach down into every village in Lao PDR, andthey are one of the only organizations with suchcoverage. The government structure only reachesdown as far as the district level. At central, provincialand district levels, LWU representatives sit on IECDCoordinating Committees. LWU representatives arealso members of Village Committees, though not allrealize their potential and power. Coordination by theLWU with local line agency staff in technical ministries,especially in the Ministry of Health (including Waterand Sanitation Department), Ministry of Agricultureand the Non-Formal Education Centre, is essential forsuccessful community development efforts.

The focus was placed on capacity building, networking and the development of innovativeIECD interventions and activities. The main objectives were:

• to establish systems to integrate ECD and community development efforts in Projectvillages, with strong collaboration between various line ministries;

• to initiate IECD activities in at least 180 villages of five provinces during the two-year period and having a direct impact on young children;

• to build capacity among decentralized teams at the provincial and district levels,under the Lao Women’s Union, through team building, training, technical inputsand central policy directives; and

• to increase coverage and relevance of advocacy and communication efforts, throughthe development of media in local languages and of contextually appropriateparenting orientation modules.

Parenting Orientation (PO) was implemented by the Early Childhood Development Divisionof Ministry of Education. The central IECD technical team reviewed the contents and theprocess of training of village volunteers on PO. It also aimed to ensure coherence ininformation and messages on child care between Ministry of Health and Ministry ofEducation. The multi-sectoral team also reviewed the objectives of PO and the compositionof PO trainer team. As a result a new PO trainer team was formed, comprising of: EarlyChildhood Development Division and Non-Formal Education Department of Ministry ofEducation, Department of Hygiene and Prevention of Ministry of Health, and Lao Women’sUnion. The PO training used simple action research methods to lead participants (i.e.,parents, siblings and grandparents) through an analysis of their own caregiving beliefsand practices and how they could be improved. It was also agreed to introduce tencomprehensive topics that included health and nutrition, early learning and psycho-socialdevelopment of the PO modules step by step, but with simple recording and monitoringtools for village volunteers.

A total of 152 participantsrepresenting the line ministrieswere also trained on selected POtopics. The training topicsinclude; 1) introduction of IECDconcept, 2) orientation for villageauthorities on PO and selectionof village volunteers, 3)breastfeeding, 4) introducingcomplementary food, and 5)growth monitoring. Two daysout of the six-day training werespent actually conductingParenting Orientation in villages.The training was closelysupervised by the central teamand total 152 participants weretrained.


Both of these processes put the young child at the centre of community developmentefforts, and aimed to fulfil the needs and rights of young children and women throughcoordinated community-based plans and actions that not only benefited children andwomen but their families and communities as a whole.

Analysis of the Project

“When we thought about village development before, we thought of it in terms of adultsand what they wanted. We left the children to take care of themselves. Now, we focus ourefforts on providing for our young children, since they are our future.”

Village headman

The first step in undertaking the IECD initiative in Lao PDR was the establishment of asupportive structure in terms of IECD Task Forces as well as mechanisms for central andprovincial planning and policy-making. Within UNICEF, an IECD Task Force was establishedto ensure collaboration on activity development within targeted provinces, districts andcommunities, as well as with national counterparts. For the later, the LWU established aCentral (National) IECD Technical Team, which was active in managing UNICEF inputsand establishing governmental mechanisms for IECD. This Central IECD Technical Teamalso set up Provincial and District IECD Coordination Committees and Technical Teams.

The first national IECD meeting with central and provincial counterparts was held in January2002 in Champasak province. At this meeting, IECD strategies were reviewed, objectiveswere set, the districts in which activities would be focused were selected as well as criteriafor selecting target villages, and decentralized processes for developing proposals byvillages, districts and provinces were agreed upon.

This meeting was followed-up with three-day Provincial Orientations for district-levelcounterparts. Each level, therefore, was sensitized as to what is IECD within the frameworkof children’s and women’s rights, its benefits at individual to national levels, and whattheir roles and responsibilities would be in bringing about successful improvements inthe situation of Lao children and women.

It was agreed that Provincial and District Coordination Committees should be establishedunder the leadership of Local Governors, with the LWU serving as member secretary. TheCentral IECD Coordination Committee was not formed until much later, as the politicalpressures of membership and leadership, as well as difficulties in determining its roleand function, could delay the initiatives happening at the local level. Therefore, the CentralLWU played the coordinating role and used the Central Technical Team to establishguidelines and to get the process started in the provinces, districts and villages.

Village Survey and Plan

IECD in Lao PDR was and is a community-based initiative and, in line with recentdecentralization efforts, the actual implementation of IECD activities under this Projectrested in the hands of the community and its’ Village Development Committee. TheCommittee consists of the village headman, a LWU representative, representatives from


the National Youth Union and National Front, as well as other important community personssuch as volunteer health workers. Through this Committee, one of the main activities inwhich community members were directly involved in IECD was the collection of VillageSurvey data.

The Village Survey was used to provide quantitative information on the extent andmagnitude of major problems affecting young people and women. This then guidedcommunity members in the development of Village Plans. The Village Survey was alsoused to build the capacity of decentralized teams at provincial and district levels (i.e.,education, health, rural development, LWU, Lao Youth Union) through team building,training and technical inputs in conducting research so that subsequent surveys could beundertaken successfully and IECD databases at provincial and district levels developed.

The Survey contained two parts. One was a Community Survey Form designed to collectgeneral and demographic information for each community, its economic situation andinfrastructure, education, health, water and sanitation situations, as well as child protectionissues. The second part of the Survey consisted of Household Survey Forms containingthree questionnaires: household, maternal and under five children.

To implement the Village Survey, a five-day Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop washeld by the National Statistical Centre (NSC) to train members of the Central IECD TechnicalTeam on the intent of the survey forms, their content and procedures for filling out thequestionnaires, definition of terms, as well as general procedures for conducting the survey.This TOT session was also used to pre-test the questionnaires (no subsequent revisionswere necessary).

Thereafter, the Central IECD Technical Team trained enumerators (researchers) at theprovincial level to conduct the survey in each district and village. One major difficulty wasthat the qualifications and experience of these enumerators varied with some being morecapable than others in learning about and undertaking the Survey. Training topics paralleledthose for the Central TOT workshop. Due to the limited number of qualified persons at theDistrict statistical planning office, this level had very little, if any, involvement in the Survey.The District IECD Technical Team, however, was very active in the participatory villageplanning process, which included consolidating findings from the Village Survey withqualitative information collected by community members in order to develop Village Plansfor improving IECD within families and communities.

The Village Surveys were conducted from 1-20 October 2002 among 2,835 householdsfrom 34 districts and nine provinces. While community members were involved in theSurvey as respondents, they were not active participants in its implementation. In eachvillage, 15 households were randomly selected based on household lists compiled by thevillage head. Unfortunately, this meant that some households were selected that did notcontain children under five, and hence the information for the under five child questionnairecould not be collected. This problem has led to difficulties in aggregating and analyzingthe data to create district, provincial and national level pictures of the situation of underfive children. Currently, the data are not representative beyond the village level, thoughthis does not affect their usefulness in developing Village Plans. For future surveys, itwould be recommended that a complete sample (all households) or a purposive sample(all households with children under five) be used.


Figure 4. Content of the Household Survey Form Questionnaires

Child Health • Percentage of children under 1 year old with completed EPI.• Percentage of children aged 6-59 months who have received vitamin A twice a year.• Percentage of children under 6 months who exclusively breastfeed.• Percentage of children 0-2 years old being weighed every month.

Maternal Health • Proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel.• Percentage of pregnant mothers receiving four antenatal care visits.• Percentage of women 15-45 years old receiving more than two tetanus toxoid

vaccinations.• Percentage of women receiving iron supplementation during pregnancy and after giving birth.• Percentage of mothers receiving a Vitamin A supplement before their infants were 8 weeks old.• Percentage of pregnant women whose previous birth was at least two years earlier.

Education • Proportion of children 6-10 years old attending primary school.• Percentage of parents of 0-5 year old children receiving information on health education.

Child Protection • Percentage of children between 0-5 years whose births are reported as being registered.

Goals Summary Indicators

Background information (e.g., Background information (name, birth Birth registration and ECDhousehold composition, date, timing of most recent child experiencelanguage, sources of delivery)information/media)

Source of income Tetanus toxoid status Vitamin A status (receipt ofcapsules, evidence of night

Housing status (number of Maternal and newborn health status blindness)rooms; type of flooring, (receipt of vitamin A, malaria tablets,roofing, walls) iron tablets, antenatal care; difficulties Breastfeeding history

in carrying a pregnancy; use ofSource of food and availability health services; place of delivery and Illness history including

attendant; infant birth weight; caregivingWater and sanitation situation post-natal care)

Hand washing practices Malaria history includinghealth care and prevention

Salt iodizationImmunization history

Educational history ofhousehold members Anthropometric

measurements for each childChild labour and out-migration under 5 living within thehistory sample households (growth

monitoring was conducted asHIV Awareness part of the survey)

Household Questionnaire Maternal Questionnaire Under Five Child Questionnaire

The Village Survey identified malnourished children and promoted community-basedmonitoring of child growth and well-being. For those children under five who were identifiedas being malnourished, their caregivers were given nutrition education in order to improvenutritional status. Community members reported that some of the recommendations couldnot be followed, especially by very poor families who are unable to obtain the suggestedfood items. Consequently, more sensitive food and nutrition guidelines and recommendationsare needed to support the promotion of growth monitoring and surveillance among youngchildren from especially poverty stricken families.

The completed Village Survey questionnaires were returned to the NSC for data entry, cleaningand analysis. In order to provide villages with the information they would need to begindeveloping Village Plans, the NSC ran 27 tables and five Excel spreadsheets per village, andthese were sent to the districts and communities as input into the participatory village planningprocess. The type of information provided in these tables and spreadsheets is shown below.


Information from the Village Survey served as input into the Village Planning processundertaken by all IECD villages. Guided by manuals on participatory village planning(developed by the LWU, the Ministry of Education and UNICEF technical teams) as well asthe Village Survey information from the National Statistics Centre, the district and provincialIECD technical teams worked closely with communities to conduct a “situational survey”of the major problems in each community affecting young children and women and thento develop One- and Three-year Village Plans to solve them.

This participatory Village Planning approach was extremely valuable for several reasons.First, most of the IECD communities had never formulated Village Development Plans norundertaken organized community development activities before. Consequently, theparticipatory planning process gave all community members (women and men) a chanceto come together and make decisions about developing their communities. Moreover,while most community members were aware of the major problems affecting youngchildren (such as malaria) many did not know their causes. Nor were they aware that suchproblems could be life-threatening.

The participatory planning process thus increased community members’ awareness ofthe causes of problems affecting young children and gave them a reason and startingpoint for community development activities. For instance, in Leek Village, Thataeng District,Sekong Province, community members identified the following as major problems affectingyoung children and women:

• Malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months,• Children aged 0-5 who do not have birth certificates,• Giving birth without the assistance of skilled health personnel,• Women who do not receive Tetanus Toxoid vaccinations nor Vitamin A supplements,• Most children aged zero to eight years are affected by preventable diseases such

as malaria and diarrhoea, as well as other illnesses such as the flu, pneumonia,skin diseases and conjunctivitis (red/pink eye),

• No households have latrines,• Women deliver children on a yearly basis (little, to no, birth spacing),• Animals are raised unattended and may promote disease transmission.

The problems affecting young children and women were then ranked, as follows:

1. Most children aged zero to eight years are affected by preventable diseases suchas malaria and diarrhoea, as well as other illnesses such as the flu, pneumonia,skin diseases and conjunctivitis (red/pink eye),

2. No households have latrines,3. Women deliver children on a yearly basis (little, to no, birth spacing),4. Women who do not receive Tetanus Toxoid vaccinations nor Vitamin A supplements,5. Animals are raised unattended and may promote disease transmission,6. Giving birth without the assistance of skilled health personnel,7. Malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months,8. Children aged zero to five who do not have birth certificates.

Thereafter, facilitators and villagers discussed the linkage between problems (such asmalnutrition and illness), their causes, the consequences of these problems for thedevelopment of young children, and what solutions or actions can be taken to solve the


causes of problems either on the part of villagers themselves or with support from externalagencies (local authority, donor support).

The last stage was to build commitment in the villages to the development of their children.This commitment was encouraged and actualized through a “village engagement”agreement which was signed by members of the village development committee and allvillage members. This child rights-based agreement was an important starting point forencouraging community members to begin acting upon the problems that they themselvescould solve, while awaiting for external assistance to solve those that they could not. Asample of this agreement is shown below.

UNICEF EAPRO


Our village...............has been selected to be a village for integrated early childhooddevelopment.

Children are the future of the country. If they are not in good health, do not develop well, donot have fun and are often ill, the country cannot be a strong and prosperous. Our villagecannot develop if we do not take better care of our children.

We promise that we will try our best to support children of our village.

We believe that UNICEF and government officials at all levels from the central, province andthe district will come to work together with us and support our village.

Our village will contribute local materials, our time and our labour. We do not expect thatoutsiders will do everything for us. All villagers will actively participate in improving theliving conditions of our children.

Mothers must breastfeed their children for six months. They must have time to relax, eatnutritious foods, and not undertake heavy work, especially after delivery and until theirinfants are 6 months of age. A father must help with house work and child care. On behalf ofall of villagers, we promise that, “we will support mothers of young infants.”

Children under one year of age should receive care and encouragement. Children needadults to talk to, to joke and to play with. Children need to be touched and cared for byadults. Children need to be fully immunized and have their names in the householdregistration book. On behalf of all of villagers, we promise that, “we will take care of ourvillage children better than before.”

Children under five years of age need to have a clean house and secure environment. Thehouse needs to have a clean latrine to avoid disease. Keeping animals underneath of thehouse causes children to become ill. Moreover, when children fear their parents, they willnot be emotionally secure and will not enjoy life. It will also make them ill. On behalf of allvillagers, we promise that “we will keep our house and our environment clean and securefor children.”

All children, both girls and boys, have the right to go to school. They must continue to go toschool even during times when their labour is needed for agricultural work or child care.Handicapped children also have the right to go to school. Teachers sometimes needassistance from the village and teachers have a responsibility to teach all children well sothat they are able to learn to read and to write.

On behalf of all villagers, we promise that we will try our best to support children and tobuild a good future for all children

Village head Lao Women’s Union Village youth

Village national front Teacher VHW (village health worker)

Villagers

Figure 6. Draft of Village Engagement for IECD

In particularly active villages, the Village Plan was considered a plan of action, which wasdiscussed at every village development meeting, where the status of activities wasmonitored and new activities identified. Because they were involved in developing theVillage Plan, community members viewed the Plan as their Plan, and not a Plan given tothem by District or Provincial personnel. Moreover, although it focuses on IECD, the Planwas considered a community development plan, not simply a plan for improving thesituation of young children and women.


Successes

Improving family and community care practices depends in part upon empowering familiesand communities to improve the security of the households and communities in whichchildren grow, develop and are protected. Important household and community securitiesinclude food, water, shelter and environmental protection, as well as the means to securelivelihoods and access to resources. Securing these areas rests on increasing the abilityof families and communities to work together to assess their situation in terms of importanthousehold resources (e.g., income, food, education, labour, water supply, and sanitation),the status and health of women, as well as the health, nutrition and protection of theiryoung children.

IECD in Lao PDR is therefore, necessarily a community-based initiative. The implementationof activities under this project rested in the hands of the community and it’s VillageDevelopment Committee and through the conduct of the Village Surveys, which servedas a basis for the Village Plan, local communities and their partners at local, regional andnational levels were able to target the special needs of young children and women.

This level of integration in the Project was a significant outcome, both at the local leveland at the central level. In the past, IECD efforts had been largely uni-sectoral in nature;however, this project encouraged an activity-response process where activities respondedto the Plans and requests presented by individual villages based on their analysis of theVillage Surveys. Further, through the active involvement of local communities in both theplan and surveys, the Project was able to combine a “top-down” approach with a “bottom-up”one, avoiding the “dole-out” approach that characterizes many centrally developedprogrammes.

Finally, the IECD initiative was not a typical “community development” effort, which usuallyfocuses on the wants of adults (especially for infrastructure improvements). Rather, it wasa child-centred development approach that focused adults on fulfilling the needs andrights of young children and their mothers at the community level, and not the wants ofadults. One of the common pitfalls of “general” community development planning, whichhas an adult focus, is that community members inevitably make requests for infrastructureimprovements - such as the building of roads or installation of electricity - which usuallycannot be fulfilled. In the Lao IECD/community development process, however, no such(unrealistic) requests appeared in any of the Village Plans because they were child-centred.


Funding for the programme was extended from the original 12-month period ending inOctober 2003, till the end of 2004. This will allow externally supported activities whichneeded longer approval times to go ahead. However, whilst considerable support for theIECD activities has been developed in local communities, it is still not yet self-sustaining,and swift support is needed to ensure villagers don’t become disenchanted with the processand goals of child-centred development.

Another challenge is developing a suitable monitoring system for villages. The currentsystem requires community members to calculate the responses to the village surveyquestionnaires, for example, the percentages of mothers receiving four antenatal care


visits, percentages of children receiving full immunization and so on. Given the low levelsof literacy and also possibly numeracy, it is not certain that community members wouldbe able to either fill out the questionnaire or understand its meaning. A monitoring toolthat could realistically be used by villagers - one that is more qualitative in nature, forexample, a simple checklist of whether an activity or behaviour has been initiated, andwhat results are apparent - should be developed.

The low-level of literacy also posed a challenge for health workers providing informationand material to parents on IECD. Given the low level of literacy among community women,pictorially-based posters (no words, just pictures) showing the types of foods childrenneed and their frequency (for instance, three bowls of rice per day) could be a usefulintervention tool. The same strategy can be used for improving hygiene and showing theproper steps for washing one’s hands thoroughly.

Lessons Learned

Due to inadequate numbers of personnel and their experience along with a high rate ofturnover, the district level was the weakest link in the IECD network. Yet because itspersonnel worked directly with communities in developing Village Plans and undertakingactivities, it was the most crucial for supporting and sustaining the integrated earlychildhood and community development process as well as activities for ensuring earlychildhood care. To deal with these issues, and especially that of turnover, a regular IECDre-training programme should to be developed and implemented. Moreover, mechanismsfor integrating the IECD community development process more firmly into district routines(e.g., monitoring, data collection) could increase the likelihood of sustainability, particularlysince IECD villages already see their Village Plans as community development plans, notjust actions for improving the status of young children and women.

Future Directions

The Project’s success in promoting strong, multisectoral development partnerships, aswell as its achievement in strengthening families and delivery of services through itsemphasis on promoting a participatory, community-based approach has seen ECDintegrated at all levels of Lao community. This in turn helps to cement the sustainability ofthe lessons of the Project and the services and village action plans developed through it.

Further, because district and provincial IECD technical teams facilitated the participatoryvillage planning process, their awareness and understanding of village life and itsconstraints was heightened, giving increased impetus to the mobilization of resources toaid in community development activities.

The Lao IECD initiative focused heavily on the rights of survival, growth and developmentfor young children. However, comparatively little emphasis was given to child protectionincluding HIV/AIDS prevention. This should not be viewed as a weakness however, butrather as an inevitable step in the process of improving children’s rights. The Lao IECDinitiative is maturing to the point of where it can begin expanding its horizons and takingon more complex issues such as child protection in order to truly ensure the rights andwell-being of young children and women. One of the first starting points could be the


development of a protection module for incorporation into Parenting Orientations. Themain objective could be to increase the capacities of families and communities to providefor the proper protection as well as care of young children and their families in line withthe CRC. Another worthwhile objective in support of children’s participation would be tobuild the capacities and increased participation of children and youth so they becomeactive partners in the protection of young children and in protecting themselves as theircontribution to IECD and the development of their families and communities.


UNICEF Myanmar

DEVELOPING COMMUNITY SUPPORT NETWORKS

MYANMAR


THE EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND DEVELOPMENT NETWORK

PROJECT MYANMAR

Background

In Myanmar, a popular saying says, “children are our jewels”. Children are greatly valuedin Myanmar’s families and communities. Yet, over 33 per cent of children aged five andunder have stunted growth, and over 35 per cent are under-weight. Malnutrition for childrenaged three and under is over 43 per cent, and in some poorer, peri-urban areas half of allchildren are undernourished3.

A study of child care practices4 conducted in 1999 in two peri-urban townships in Yangonand one rural village outside the city showed that the poor and very poor comprised 60per cent of families in peri-urban townships and a quarter of families in rural villages. Inthe poorest wards, all the children in the homes visited showed signs of malnutrition andstunting. Healthcare is provided for young children in Myanmar by the Ministry of Health.The Ministry provides ante-natal services, as well as deliveries, immunizations, and parenteducation on nutrition, birth spacing and so on. However, these services provided throughhealth clinics and health workers are largely inaccessible to families living in rural areas.

The situation in terms of education is just as grim. The Ministry of Education has setupsome pre-primary classes attached to basic education schools. While non-state preschoolservices are also provided by UNICEF and other international agencies as well asinternational NGOs and civil society groups such as churches and the YMCA. However,there are still few childcare facilities in relation to need, and those services that are availableare extremely limited, with formal services provided only for three- to five-year-olds. Thislimited service is even further constrained by its poor take-up rate - only seven per cent ofchildren eligible to attend do so. Because both parents frequently need to work in orderfor the family to survive, older siblings often take on the role of caregivers, many leavingschool themselves to look after their younger brothers and sisters. In the most desperatesituations, young children are left at home all day with the doors locked.

On average families in Myanmar spend over 70 per cent of their income on food. As aLeast Developed Country (LDC), Myanmar has an estimated GDP of 258 USD per capitawith approximately one quarter of the country’s population living below minimumsubsistence levels. As a result, education and childcare have taken a backseat in manyfamilies, where just earning enough money to eat is a major challenge.

The Department of Social Welfare is the focal point for early childhood development (ECD)services in Myanmar. It operates a number of preschools and daycare centres, and alsogives some technical support to the much larger number of community-run daycarecentres. There is no official early childhood development policy, although the Departmentis in the process of developing criteria and registration requirements for facilities for youngchildren.

3 Darntorn-Hill, I. (2002). Consultant’s Report: National nutrition planning. Presentation to a seminar on Multi-sectoralApproach for Nutrition Promotion, Myanmar, November 2002.4 Sternin, M. (1999). Report on study of child care practices in selected communities of Hlaing Thar Yar, NorthOkkalapa and Thongwa. Yangon, UNICEF.



In response to the situation outlined in the background, UNICEF initiated the EarlyChildhood Care and Development (ECCD) Network Project in August 2000. The Projectwas designed to address the gap in integrated, appropriate care support systems for youngchildren in poor families noted across the country.

The Project objectives were to:1) Provide basic integrated childcare services to disadvantaged children between the

ages of zero and five in five poor peri-urban areas of Yangon.2) Establish childcare networks at the community level including school-based pre-

kindergartens.3) Raise public awareness of the importance of a holistic and integrated approach to

ECCD through advocacy and social mobilization initiatives.

The Project took a three-pronged approach by establishing pre-kindergarten classes andsupport groups to provide nutrition and education; providing trainings; and engaging alocal NGO Pyinnya Tazaung to implement and monitor the Project.

The two main activities under the Project were the establishing of 51 pre-kindergartenclasses for three- and four-year-olds which were attached to basic education schools ineach township; and 600 Mothers’ Circles for under three-year-olds in community homes,with one leader, usually the owner of the home.

Before the pre-kindergarten classes were opened, the classrooms were renovated to makethem early childhood friendly and a basic set of furniture and play/learning material wasprovided. The pre-kindergartens were open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. five days a week. In contrastto the schools, the pre-kindergartens were also open during the summer as well. Two ECCD-trained government teachers were responsible for the classes with two support groupmembers helping with preparing the nutritional supplement and supporting the teachers inthe classroom. The classroom environment was set up with learning corners and a varietyof play material. Most of the pre-kindergarten classes also had facilities for outdoor activities.Children were fed a nutritious lunch, a snack, vitamin supplements five days a week, andde-worming tablets every six months. They were weighed once a month and their weightrecorded on their individual growth charts provided by the Department of Health.

Whereas the pre-kindergarten classes provided a combination of health care and educationfor the children, the Mothers’ Circle provided health care and parent education. The hourswere also more flexible in the Mothers’ Circles, adjusting according to the most convenienttime for the mothers and leaders. Most were open for three hours, five days a week, allyear and included a nutritious meal and small snack and a vitamin supplement. As in thepre-kindergarten classes, the children were also de-wormed every six months and weighedonce a month. Each Mothers’ Circle was supplied with basic cooking and eating utensilsand some play material. Some of the support groups also helped by making toys for theMothers’ Circles. Besides the Mothers’ Circle leaders, there were three facilitators for everyten Circles. They supported the leaders by helping with the logistics, bringing the childrento the groups, and giving some parent education.

At the time of publication 8,550 children were receiving ECCD services through the Project- 2,550 three- and four-year-old children in 51 pre-kindergarten classes and 6,000 underthrees in 600 Mothers Circles.


ECCD Network Project Activities in the Communities


“This Network Project is having such an incredible impact on children that I have decidedto start it in the village I come from in the Delta. People there are very interested and wantto help their children, but don’t know what to do. With the experience and knowledge Ihave gained through this Project, I can help them get started.”

Quote from a Pyinnya Tazaung monitor

Successes

The ECCD Network Project has had a positive impact on the children and families involved.Children at both the pre-kindergarten classes and the mothers’ circles were reported bytheir parents and township education officers to be more assertive, brighter and active,and many gained weight and health as a result of nutrition and vitamin supplements.

The presence of appropriate play/learning environments for children at the pre-kindergartenclasses was an important factor according to a survey of the Project. The survey monitored15 classes under the Project and found that two-thirds of the classes provided anappropriate environment as compared to only one-third of classes provided by theDepartment of Social Welfare, NGOs and other groups.


The Mothers’ Circles, however, were the most successful component of the Project, havingthe most impact on the children and their families. One of the reasons given for theirsuccess was that the Mothers’ Circles were community driven and owned. That is, theywere based in the community and drew both leaders and facilitators from that samecommunity. As a result they had the trust of the communities in which they were basedand they also had good local knowledge of families and their situations, enabling them toreach those most in need.

The Mothers’ Circles also demonstrated the most dramatic changes in the lives and healthof the children whose mothers’ used the support service. This may be in part becausechildren under the age of three are growing and developing more quickly than olderchildren. Any intervention at this early age, therefore, has the potential to have a muchgreater impact than on older children. Leaders of the Circles reported that most childrencoming into the group were malnourished and developmentally delayed. Some could notsit up, some could not walk and one could not even lift her head. However, after at leastthree months of coming to the Circle and benefiting from the nutrition and care giventhere, the children were able to make strong health and development gains and to beginto catch up to normal development expectations for their age.

Another reason for the strong success of the Mothers’ Circles is that the group leadershad regular contact with the mothers, who brought and collected their children from thegroup. This regular contact allowed the Circle leaders in an informal way to provideinformation and advice to parents about the needs of their children.

“At first I didn’t tell the parents anything. I just bathed the children when they came to theMothers’ Circle and put medicine on their sores and thanaka on them. After awhile themothers felt anade (embarrassed/ashamed), so they started to bathe them before sendingthem to me. Then I explained to the mothers why they should keep their children cleanand why they need regular food.”

Quote from leader of a Mothers’ Circle in Dawbon township

When asked if they had changed in the way they relate to their children as a result of theMothers’ Circle, parents reported that they were more patient, didn’t beat their children asmuch, and paid more attention to their care.


The biggest challenge faced by the Project was reaching the poorest families. They werethe most in need of the Project’s interventions, but because of their extreme poverty manyhad no fixed home and were always moving. No services were able to reach these families.

Another challenge was reaching the parents of the children. The Mothers’ Circles wereoriginally designed to be a place where mothers or caregivers would come with theirchildren for a few hours every day in order for their children to receive food and vitaminsand some psycho-social stimulation. It was envisioned that many of these children wouldbe under the age of one. The mothers would observe and help the leader and thus learninformally how to care for and interact with their children. In actual fact, however, in thepoorest wards, both parents generally work as daily labourers, such as water carriers, orconstruction workers. Even with both parents working, they earn less than a dollar a day.


If one becomes sick or injured and cannot work, the income is halved. They cannot spend,consequently, three hours a day at a Mothers’ Circle. Further, the majority of the children atthe Mothers’ Circles were older than the target group, mostly around the age of two as thebreast-fed babies are kept with the mother. They were brought by relatives or friends orfetched by the Mothers’ Circle leader or facilitator, and taken home in the same way. Thechallenge now is how to find a way to conduct parent education that will take account of thelimited time of most families in the poorest areas to give to non-income earning activities.

Lastly, the limited resources of many schools provided an unexpected challenge to the pre-kindergarten component of the Project. During the implementation many ECCD teacherswho were trained by the Project to be full-time pre-kindergarten teachers found that theyalso became responsible for other classes in their school because of a lack of other teachers.As a result children attending the pre-kindergarten classes were often left with supportteachers with only five days of ECCD training and limited early childhood expertise.

Lessons Learned

The present design, which includes the following elements, works well:• Using a pre-kindergarten class as a base through which to access communities;• Training and establishing community networks through support groups;• Establishing Mothers’ Circles in homes in the communities;• Providing nutritious food, vitamins, and de-worming medicine;• Engaging a local NGO to coordinate and monitor the Project.

However, more difficult it was discovered, was choosing the right school in which to establishthe pre-kindergarten classes. Relying on township education officers to identify appropriateschools was not so successful. This was partly because of they came from within thecommunity they were on occasions subject to undue influence to choose one school overanother. Competition between chosen schools was intense because of the benefits thatwere expected to come to the school if chosen, such as financial or material support. It isrecommended, therefore, that a more useful approach would be the use of externalresearchers to conduct surveys identifying the most disadvantaged wards. Once these wardswere identified, one-day seminars with ward leaders and principals from all the primaryschools in that ward could be held, explaining the Project, and what the responsibilities andbenefits for the schools chosen would be. The participants at this seminar as representativesof their community would in a more transparent and participatory way, then work togetherto choose the appropriate schools in their area for the Project.

Just as the right schools must be chosen, so too must the right people be chosen to implementthe Project. Some leaders interviewed in the monitoring of the Project reported that theProject wasn’t working well because the parents were not interested or were too poor.However, in a ward that was identified as one of the poorest wards in the five networktownships, the Project was very successful. The difference is the people. The qualities requiredof local partners and how to identify suitable partners should be included as one of thecomponents in the ECCD awareness seminar for both the township education officers andthe principals. The same is true too of teachers. The Project found it was difficult to findteachers prepared to teach three- and four-year-olds. There were a number of reasons forthis, including:


• Pre-kindergarten teachers are not valued as it is seen only as babysitting;• The salaries of government teachers are very low, so they need to supplement

their income through outside tutoring, of which there is no opportunity of whenteaching younger, pre-kindergarten students;

• Pre-kindergarten teachers only receive a one-month summer break rather than athree-month break;

• Pre-kindergarten teachers have many extra responsibilities such as the monthlyweighing of children and contacting parents, supervising the Support Group andthe Mothers Circles.

• Pre-kindergarten teachers are not from the communities so often don’t feel anyresponsibility for the well-being of the community.

Lastly it was found that it was advisable to hold regular meetings between the PyinnyaTazaung staff implementing the Project and the school principals to allow for discussionof concerns around the Project. This would limit misunderstandings between the Projectcoordinators and the schools which at times threatened to impact negatively on the Project.

Future Directions

Funding for the ECCD Network Project finishes in June 2004. It was originally planned toexpand the Project to two other peri-urban townships in Yangon and also to somedisadvantaged rural townships. However, with no guarantee of funding beyond 2004, thepresent plan is to cover the original five townships more completely, with particular focuson targeting the very poorest families. As the Mothers’ Circles have been found to be the mosteffective way to reach this group, new circles have been established in the poorest wards.

“Now that we know the ingredients and how to make this nutritional supplement, we couldcall the families together and each one could donate a little rice, a little oil, a little pulse flourand the other things needed every day so the Mothers’ Circle leader could still cook it everymorning like she does now. It wouldn’t, of course, be the best quality that UNICEF is nowproviding, but it would still be adequate. We could also give a little compensation to theleader. We would still need the vitamins and de-worming tablets, but could ask help fromdonors.”

Quote from one of the Mothers’ Circle mothers

In a survey conducted for the Project assessment those interviewed all agreed that tocontinue the pre-kindergarten classes and the Mothers’ Circles would require the familiesof children to provide their food. There was optimism that this would be possible, yet itwould mean that the most disadvantaged families would again not be reached. Donationsfrom local businessmen and companies were also suggested as an alternative, althoughthis solution is unlikely given the current economic situation in Myanmar. Besides thequestion of how to provide the food, as well as vitamins and de-worming medicine, thereis also the cost of the salaries the NGO implementing the Project. Coordination and regularmonitoring of the Project is vital to its success. A feasibility study into alternate means ofraising funds should be conducted.

Despite the focus of the activities on providing nutrition and healthcare to young children,the Project is actually most importantly, a community development initiative. As such,


there have been many outcomes that are encouraging signs for the future. Most particularlythe Project has facilitated the coming together of parents and other community membersto care for their young children. The sustainability of the Project and the learning wroughtby it have also been increased by the success of the Project in encouraging localcommunities to see the pre-kindergarten classes and Mothers’ Circles as their own. TheProject has successfully created both formal and informal childcare networks in thecommunities chosen under the Project, which will increase the chances of sustainableimprovements in ECCD. The demonstrable benefits of good nutrition and healthcare asseen by the increase in the health and development of the children who were covered bythe Projects activities also adds to sustainability of ECCD learning in the community afterthe completion of the Project.

UNICEF Myanmar


UNICEF Philippines

CREATING EFFECTIVE POLICIES AND PLANS

PHILIPPINES


THE EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND DEVELOPMENT ACT

THE PHILIPPINES

Background

The Early Childhood Care and Development Act or RA 8980 (ECCD Act) is the nationalpolicy of the Philippines that institutionalizes an integrated and comprehensive systemfor early childhood care and development. The ECCD Act recognizes the first six years tobe the most crucial period in a child’s life because the foundation for later development islaid during these years (State of Filipino Children, 2000).

Prior to the ECCD Act, the Philippines since the early forties all the way to the eighties,implemented numerous separate and discrete programmes for children with the aim ofproviding for their various health, nutrition and education needs. These focused on diseaseand mortality reduction among children. Eventually, the thrust was altered on the basis ofresearch on child development that showed truly successful child care and developmentrequired a more comprehensive approach. Thus, the trend gradually transitioned from acompartmentalized view to a holistic approach to child care, taking into consideration thedifferent facets of child development, namely, the physical, social, emotional, and cognitivedomains. Further, recognizing that the early years of a child’s life are the most crucialstage in his/her life, the Philippines felt that investing in children’s health, nutrition andearly education at this stage was vital as it set the stage for life-long health, learning andresponsible behaviour.

The 90’s ushered in attempts to maximize childcare programmes in the areas of health,nutrition and early education. In health, this decade saw the advent of disease preventionprogrammes implemented in schools and barangays that led the Philippines to be declaredpolio-free. Nutrition programmes successfully integrated maternal health into its objectivesacknowledging that an infant’s health is dependent on its mother’s state of health duringpregnancy. The education sector further justified the strengthening of Early ChildhoodProgrammes by instituting ECCD policy reforms through the Congressional Commissionon Education.

Integrated inter-sectoral planning and management became the main strategy fordelivering ECCD services. In 1974, the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC), a policy-making body was formed by virtue of Presidential Decree 603. The CWC is composed ofthe Secretaries of the Departments of Social Welfare and Development; Education, Cultureand Sports; Interior and Local Government; Agriculture; Directors of the National Economicand Development Authority and the National Nutrition Council.

In 1999, various stakeholders, child development experts, and local government unitrepresentatives, among others were invited for consultation meetings to assist in theformulation of a landmark law institutionalizing an ECCD system at the national level byboth Houses of Congress. For the next two years, these various bills on ECCD underwentnumerous revisions. A Bicameral Conference Committee composed of Members fromeach House of Congress was constituted to reconcile the differences in the bills. TheConference Committee Report for Consolidated House Bill 11692 and Senate Bill 1438was approved in the House of Representatives on 10 October 2000 and in the Senate sixdays later on 16 October 2000. The consolidated bill was then transmitted to the President


for approval. Republic Act 8980 otherwise known as the ECCD Act was signed into law in05 December 2000.

Act 8980 is now one of the strongest policies in favour of children in the Philippines. TheAct is the culmination of numerous efforts to improve the plight of Filipino children. Thiscase study will chart these efforts, revealing how national programmes for children in thePhilippines evolved from those that mainly concerned the promotion of child survival tothose that advance total child development.

The ECCD Act of 2000

Since the 1960s and well into the 1990s, delivery of ECCD services followed a top-downand line agency approach. That is, a national government agency is tasked to deliverprogrammes and services on health (DOH), nutrition (NNC) and psycho-social development(DSWD, DepEd) from the national down to the provincial, city, municipal, and barangaylevels. However, child development is holistic and thus, cannot be compartmentalizedinto health, nutrition, education, social, emotional, and spiritual variables. All aspects areinterwoven in a child’s life and develop simultaneously such that development in onearea influences development in the others. Therefore, integrated management and servicedelivery of ECCD was imperative.

Recognizing this, inter-sectoral planning and management councils and committees,composed of members from the different departments across levels were formed. Thesecouncils and committees were tasked to conduct joint planning, monitoring and supervisionof programmes across sectors. At the forefront is the CWC, the highest policy-makingbody for children in the country, which was created by virtue of Presidential Decree No.603 or the Child and Youth Welfare Code. The CWC is also mandated to function as theNational Early Childhood Care and Development Coordinating Committee based on theECCD Act of 2000.

The CWC is composed of the Secretary of the Departments of Social Welfare andDevelopment as chair, and the Secretaries of the Departments of Education, Culture andSports, Health, Labour and Employment, Justice, Interior and Local Government, andAgriculture, the Director-General of the National Economic and Development Authority,the Directors of the National Nutrition Council, and three private individuals as members.CWC is tasked to coordinate, develop, and evaluate integrated child and youth welfareprogrammes for eventual infusion and integration into the mainstream of policy-makingand delivery of services of public and private agencies and organizations.

In 1991, the Congressional Commission on Education, requested to review the state ofPhilippine education, came up with eight specific recommendations towardsinstitutionalizing ECCD. These were:

1. Institutionalize pre-school in the form of early childhood care and developmentcentres, especially in the rural areas;

2. Develop a programme of activities rather than a curriculum;3. Use the home language as the medium of instruction;4. Provide parent education in these ECCD centres;5. Encourage the training of parents and local volunteers, along with childhood

specialists, in the operation and management of ECCD;


6. Finance ECCD centres through private initiative;7. Create an autonomous and multi-sectoral ECCD Council which shall formulate

guidelines and set minimum standards for ECCD; and8. Integrate pending bills on pre-schools and pertinent provisions in related bills into

one bill, with provisions for government to extend financial and technical assistancefor the establishment and maintenance of ECCD for children from low-incomefamilies.

Nearly a decade later, in the second quarter of 1999, various stakeholders, including the UPEducation Research Programme, were invited to attend a series of meetings by proponentsof bills pending in both Houses of Congress on ECCD. These meetings sought to create alaw institutionalizing an ECCD system at the national level. UP-ERP was asked to providetechnical assistance in reviewing and consolidating existing ECCD initiatives filed by 45congressmen and ten senators, and draft a unified bill.

The proposed ECCD bills filed in both Houses of Congress passed three separate readingsin the course of a year. The First Reading included public hearings with the academe, localgovernments, NGOs and other sectors. The House Education Committee decided toconsolidate all the 45 bills into House Bill 11692, while the Senate counterpart came up witha similar consolidated Senate Bill 1438. The Second Readings involved floor discussions/debates and amendments to refine the bills. The amendments were later incorporated intothe bills, engrossed and printed for Third Reading. Only the Number and Title of the bill isread on Third Reading.

The approved House Bill was transmitted to the Senate for its concurrence. A BicameralConference Committee composed of Members from each House of Congress was constitutedto reconcile the differences in the bills. The Conference Committee Report for consolidatedHouse Bill 11692 and Senate Bill 1438 was approved in the House of Representatives in 10October 2000 and in the Senate six days later in 16 October 2000. The consolidated bill wasthen transmitted to the President for approval. Republic Act 8980 was signed into law in 05December 2000.

RA 8980 was welcomed by internationalNGOs operating in different parts of thecountry such as Save the Children US,Plan International, Save the Children UK,and World Vision International, amongothers, who had invested millions ofdollars in various community-based andintegrated child developmentprogrammes over the years. Withsignificant contributions from variousgovernment agencies as well as localand foreign organizations involved inchild development, the ImplementingRules and Regulations of the law wasadopted by the Council for the Welfareof Children which also functions as theNational ECCD Coordinating Council in04 April 2002.

UNICEF Philippines


Enacting Republic Act 8980

“An act promulgating a comprehensive policy and a national system for early childhoodcare and development (ECCD), providing funds therefore and for other purposes, or theECCD Act”

Republic Act 8980

Republic Act 8980 defines the ECCD system as “the full range of health, nutrition, early educationand social services programmes that provide for the basic holistic needs of young childrenfrom birth to age six, to promote their optimum growth and development.” The law calls forthe implementation and institutionalization of a National System for Early Childhood Careand Development that is comprehensive, integrative and sustainable; that involves multi-sectoral and inter-agency collaboration at the national and local levels to include serviceproviders, families and communities; the public and private sector, non-governmentorganizations, professional associations, and academic institutions. It also promotes theinclusion of children with special needs and advocate respect for cultural diversity.

There are two delivery modes for ECCD - centre-based and home-based programmes -recognized in the Implementing Rules and Regulations of RA 8980. Centre-basedprogrammes refer to services at the community level whether operated by public or privatefunds. Home-based programmes are ECCD services at the family level undertaken at homeor in the neighbourhood such as neighbourhood-based playgroups, Parent EffectivenessService, family day care programmes, or home visiting programs. Parent education is avital factor for its successful implementation.

The ECCD System has five components which should be integrated as much as possibleduring the planning, organizing, implementing, supervision and evaluation of programmes.These are:

(a) The ECCD Curriculum focuses on children’s total development according to theirindividual needs and socio-cultural background. It promotes the delivery ofcomplementary and integrative services for health care, nutrition, early childhoodeducation, sanitation, and cultural activities and shall use the child’s first languageas the medium of instruction.

(b) Parent Education and Involvement, Advocacy, and Mobilization of Communities

should harness and develop parents’ strengths as providers of ECCD at home, asactive partners of other stakeholders, as advocates for community concerns thataffect children, and as pillars of support for local and national ECCD programmesthrough community organization efforts.

(c) The Human Resource Development Programme establishes mechanisms for thesystematic professionalization of ECCD service providers through pre-service orin-service training; continuing education programmes; enrolment in educationalprogrammes. Also included in this component is the development of a registrationand credential system for the ECCD System.

(d) ECCD Management focuses on a continuing process of planning, implementation,supervision, financial management, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting. It shallencourage the active involvement of service providers, parents, and localgovernment officials while building their capabilities to sustain the programme.ECCD management shall be guided by the principles of decentralization asstipulated in the Local Government Code of 1991.


(e) Quality Standards and Accreditation ensures that each component in the ECCDSystem complies with national quality standards, to be established by the NationalECCD Coordinating Council.

The National ECCD Coordinating Council is responsible for setting programme standardsand guidelines relative to programme management processes in consultation with the localECCD coordinating committees at the provincial, municipal, and barangay levels. In planningand budgeting, the National ECCD Council shall adopt a five year ECCD plan while the localECCD committees will formulate their respective three year ECCD investment plan and annualwork and financial plan for submission to and approval of their respective local developmentcouncils and Sanggunians. The local plans need to be formulated before the localdevelopment councils submit their local development plans and annual investmentprogrammes to the local finance committees for budgeting.

In monitoring and evaluation, the National ECCD Council shall develop a monitoring andevaluation system for both public and private ECCD programmes in consultation with thelocal ECCD committees. Data generated from the monitoring and evaluation system shallbe integrated into the management information system of various national governmentagencies and local government units. These will be consolidated by the National ECCDCouncil and would serve as basis for policy and programme development andimplementation. Implementation and supervision of the ECCD programmes will be ensuredby the National ECCD Council and the ECCD coordinating committees at the provincial,municipal/city, and barangay levels, with member agencies providing technical assistancein the implementation of their programmes at every level.

Putting the Act into Action - Good Practice

This section presents some of the good programmes that bring to life the spirit and intent ofthe ECCD Act at the community level. The Bataan Programme and the ECD project areGovernment supported programmes, while, Kinder Plus was initiated and implemented byNGOs in close collaboration with the concerned local government unit. These programmeswere selected because of their innovative processes and the level of institutionalizationthey have achieved.

The Bataan Child Empowerment and Daycare Enhancement

Program

The Bataan ECCD model started in 1996 with the creation of the Bataan Child EmpowermentCouncil (BCEC) under the leadership of its Governor. The BCEC is composed of professionalsin the fields of education, health, public service, social services, and communitydevelopment. The BCEC ensures the active participation of parents, youth and organizedgroups in the community through various programmes and projects initiated at theprovincial level. Its vision is to “give rise to a generation of children imbued with positiveFilipino values, empowered to discover and utilize their full potentials, and educated tobecome responsible adults and future leaders of the country.” Among its objectives areto improve the operations of the daycare centres and the performance level of children indaycare centres; to build the capacity and upgrade the competency level of daycare workers;and to ensure that support systems are in place.


To date, the BCEC reports significant gains in the ECCD programme in Bataan. An increaseof 17.6 per cent in the number of daycare centres in operation was reported from 1996 to2002. This makes Bataan almost fully compliant with RA 6972’s mandate of establishing adaycare centre in every barangay. An increase in enrolment in Bataan of 33.16 per cent inthe same period benefited 58,665 children. The number of daycare workers also increasedto complement the increase in enrolment. This may be attributed to the encouragementgiven to middle-income families to enrol their children in daycare centres.

The BCEC developed and produced, “Discover the World,” a 224-page workbook designedexclusively for the daycare service in Bataan. In addition, parent involvement has alsobeen emphasized in the programme. Parents are involved in various committees in thedaycare centres and play an active role in mapping out strategies to create and implementhigh impact programmes for their centres.

Support from the barangays also improved, with leaders channelling their IRAs into theconstruction of new daycare centres or providing for their upkeep. Support for the daycare workers is evidenced by regular increases in their salaries. The BCEC also endeavouredto lift the qualification standards of daycare workers in Bataan. By the end of 2001, themajority of the day care workers held college degrees, mostly in elementary education.Two are currently enrolled in a Master’s programme. The BCEC also sponsors regulartraining programmes for its members and daycare workers.

The past six years also saw a marked improvement in the accreditation ratings of thedaycare centres. Since 1998, all daycare centres in Bataan have earned star ratings ofthree or better (where the top score is five stars). As a result, children from Bataan’s daycarecentres have excelled in their social skills and are generally deemed as well-prepared forformal Grade One instruction.

The Early Childhood Development Project

The Early Childhood Development Project was designed to build on and improve existinghealth, nutrition, and early education services for disadvantaged families and childrenzero to six years old. The Project addresses the problems faced by Filipino children suchas infant mortality, child mortality, malnutrition, poor psychosocial development, and lowschool readiness while recognizing that poverty worsens this environment.

The integrated programme was implemented by three agencies, the Department of Health(DOH), Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) with the DSWD as the leadagency in charge of overall project management. It had three major components:

1. ECD Service Delivery;2. Support to Service Delivery; and3. Research and Development.

The province-wide Project activities intended to provide ECD services to about 2.7 millionchildren per year in the targeted sites namely, Negros Occidental, Iloilo, Guimaras, Capiz,Antique and Aklan in Region VI, Cebu, Negros Oriental and Siquijor, and Bohol in RegionVII, and North Cotabato, Lanao del Norte and Sultan Kudarat in Region XII.


The school-based ECD interventions aimed to benefit about 2.4 million school entrants.By the end of the Project about 100,000 children will have benefited from integrated ECDservices from birth to Grade One.

The Local Government Unit sub-project sought to assist poor families and reach about1.3 million preschoolers. The objectives of the project were:

1. Reduction by 30 per cent of the under-five mortality rate from the baseline value(currently estimated at over 35 per thousand).

2. Reduction by 40 per cent in the proportion of children under six with Grade 2 or 3underweight from the baseline value (currently estimated at around 30 per cent).

3. Reduction by 30 per cent in the proportion of children under six with anaemia fromthe baseline value (currently estimated at around 50 per cent among infants).

4. Increase to 90 per cent in proportion of children aged 12 to 18 months fullyimmunized from the baseline value (currently estimated at less than 85 per cent).

5. Improvement in a combined index of child development (motor and cognitive skills)among children under six (indicator to developed in baseline study).

6. Increase in completion rate from Grade 1 to 70 per cent of Grade One entrants fromthe baseline value (currently estimated at 50 per cent).

7. Increase to 75 per cent in proportion of total children aged three to five in targetedmunicipalities attending day-care centres (currently estimated at less than 60 per cent).

8. Establishment of functioning protein energy malnutrition programme in 50 percentof municipalities/cities by 2003.

9. Establishment of active Child Development Workers in 50 per cent of municipalities/cities by 2003.

10. Implementation of ECD sub-projects in 90 per cent of targeted municipalities by 2003.

The ECD Project evaluation has yet to take place. However, it is expected that benefits willinclude an increase in school participation, which may also contribute to a reduction in thenumber of out-of-school youth and attendant social problems. In the case of early childhoodeducation, the benefits clearly exceed the cost. Further, other benefits are savings in costsassociated with:

1. Improved health practices among children (health education, application of nutritioneducation through daily meals in group settings).

2. Investment in parent education to ensure changes in caregiving practices andbehaviour at home will also maximize investments in health and nutrition.

3. Prevention of child abuse and delinquency.4. Costs of rehabilitation of abused children.5. Costs of litigation of cases of abused children.6. Costs of rehabilitation of youth offenders.

Kinder Plus

Kinder Plus was launched in March 2000 as an early childhood care and developmentprogramme that integrates early education with health and nutrition. It is aimed at providingbasic, holistic needs of young children from birth to age six to promote their optimumgrowth and development. It is a collaborative project among the local government units,the Community of Learners Foundation (COLF), the DepEd, DSWD, DOH, and the Office ofSen. Tessie Aquino-Oreta.


The Project is being piloted in 12 Nueva Ecija municipalities. Nueva Ecija was chosen asthe pilot province because of its openness and enthusiasm toward ECCD programmesand prior collaboration work between COLF and the provincial government since 1994.

Kinder Plus aims to build an integrated system for early childhood care and developmentthat will bring together various agencies including the national and local governments,service providers, NGOs, academic institutions, communities and the family. The projectaims to achieve the following objectives:

1. To assist the local government units and public schools in selected municipalitiesand cities serving disadvantaged families in the implementation of ECCDprogrammes through:a. A training programme for public school preschool and Grade One teachers,

daycare workers, rural health midwives, community health workers and theirrespective supervisors in participating municipalities and cities;

b. Orientation programmes for local chief executives, municipal and provincialplanning and development officers and supervisors of ECCD workers;

c. Organization of ECCD Resource Centres in strategically located municipalities/cities;

d. Provision of supplementary learning materials; ande. Provision of supplementary materials and equipment for improving existing

infrastructure in areas with greatest need.

2. To generate increased public awareness, participation and support for various ECCDprogrammes through:a. Information, education and communications activities about ECCD aimed at

families and local chief executives; andb. Parent education programmes in participating municipalities in collaboration

with the daycare workers, health workers and volunteers, and non-governmentorganizations.

Now on its third year of implementation, the project has provided trainings for daycareworkers, kindergarten and Grade One teachers, and parent volunteers for the home-basedprogramme. Members of the municipal ECCD team hold once-a-week parent educationsessions on topics such as proper hygiene, importance of immunizations, family planningand other related issues. The home-based programme consists of play groups for infantsup to three years old held regularly in the home of volunteers, in spacious front yards, orunder shady trees within the community. The Municipal ECCD Team recruits parentvolunteers and finds homes where children converge to play and learn. The volunteerscome from the community itself and trained by COLF teachers. Incentives include livelihoodassistance if their play groups take off.

The project has served as an eye-opener for parents, local government officials and serviceproviders on issues such as child-rearing, proper ways to deal with children, disciplineand other concerns.

Issues in the Implementation of RA 8980

This case study has charted the evolution of the RA 8980 (ECCD Act of 2000), the blueprintof the ECCD System that should be implemented in the entire country. Through the


descriptions of the aims and processes used by exemplary ECCD programmes, examplesof how the ECCD Act can be institutionalized at the level of local communities have beenshown. However, as the implementation of RA 8980 enters its third year, the followingissues and concerns have emerged:

ECCD Curriculum:

There is a need to develop an integrated curriculum for health, nutrition and psycho-socialdevelopment for zero to six year-olds. Programme content integrating health and nutritionconcepts are present in the preschool curriculum but psychosocial development does notform part of the service delivery programme for health and nutrition service providers. Thisis compounded by the perennial lack of instructional materials, references, supplies, facilities,and equipment. The development of the draft ECCD curriculum framework and standardsis ongoing. Once the draft is completed this will be subject to consultations with expertsand other stakeholders.

Parent Education and Involvement, Advocacy and Mobilization of Communities:

A massive information, education and communication (IEC) campaign along with advocacyprogrammes should be conducted to ensure the active participation and involvement ofthe community on ECCD from the national down to the barangay level.

Human Resource Development:

There is a need to upgrade the skills and competencies of service providers through pre-service and in-service trainings and continuing education programmes. Due to limitedfunding support, trainings are usually conducted at the trainer level and do not rebound tothe grassroots level. This is further compounded by the absence of tenure, low pay andvery few benefits, as most service providers are volunteers with monthly honoraria rangingfrom about 30 to 160 USD.

ECCD Management:

A major goal of the National Early Childhood Care and Development Coordinating Councilis to fast track the implementation of the ECCD. While the “breaking ground” for theimplementation of the Integrated ECCD was done on 26 February 2003, it was only inJune 2003 that the designation of ECCD Focal Persons was completed.

Quality Standards and Accreditation:

As with most developing countries, financial constraints hamper efforts at implementingeven the most meaningful and relevant laws. If government is committed to institutionalizingthe ECCD system it should prioritize the programmes and activities that require the leastfinancial obligations. Political will is also essential at the level of the local government.Stakeholders, for their part, need a greater understanding of the issues and a higher level ofawareness on the economic, social and political implications of indifference. Too often, thefocus is on high visibility infrastructure projects like basketball courts, waiting sheds, multi-purpose centres, vehicles instead of long-term investments on social development projects.


On a brighter note, there is a new generation of policy and lawmakers, who do realize andunderstand the importance and necessity of long term investments on social development.Proof of this is that the Child Friendly Movement in the Philippines is well on its way tobeing institutionalized at the municipal, city and barangay levels. Governors and mayorsare now seriously mobilizing their constituents and providing logistical support for theirareas to be certified as “Child Friendly Municipality, City, or Barangay”. The laws arealready in place. Proper implementation of these laws is the challenge that lies ahead.With this will come the need of standards and accreditation. The present standards forthe various service providers and service delivery processes must be consolidated in thecontext of the ECCD Act.

Future Directions

The following initiatives are being pursued by the National ECCD Council/Council for theWelfare of Children as the implementation of the national ECCD system reaches its secondphase. These include:

• Establishment and institutionalization of the national ECCD system in 17 regionsand 79 provinces. The law mandates that the ECCD system be established in atleast three regions each year, as may be determined by the National ECCDCoordinating Council, to achieve national coverage over a five-year period. TheNational ECCD Coordinating Council aims to implement this by piloting in 11 regionsin 2004, six regions in 2005 and expanding within all regions during the period2006-2008.

• Formulation of ECCD curriculum - a curriculum for zero to six year old children is awork in progress. The curriculum focuses on children’s total development accordingto their individual needs and socio-cultural background. It shall promote a standardcurriculum for young children regardless of educational setting.

• Development and adoption of policies, guidelines, standards, tools and manualson ECCD. Works in progress are the development of various guidelines, standards,training protocols, tools and manuals on ECCD to enhance ECCD programmingand service delivery. One such training manual is the Revised Manual for Day CareWorkers and its accompanying training protocol. The manual serves as a guide toenhance daycare workers’ flexibility and creativity in designing the appropriatecurriculum and activities for ECCD. It replaces the Manual for Daycare Workersfirst published in the early 1990s.

• Development of an integrated human resource development programme that isdivided into separate levels, employing both formal and non-formal structure. Workin progress is the training programme for daycare workers, which aims to establisha mechanism for the systematic professionalization of service providers. The firstthree levels lead to an undergraduate degree in ECCD. The service providers mayopt to exit the program at any level after completing Level One.

• Use of the ECCD checklist. In line with the holistic view of the child’s development,the ECCD checklist was developed with assistance from UNICEF to enable thecaregivers and child development workers to monitor a child’s development inseven domains, namely: gross and fine motor, receptive and expressive language,cognitive, self-help and socio-emotional aspects. The tool will also enable them toidentify children who are at risk of developmental delays, ensuring properinterventions are made.


• Planning and resource allocation. Research has consistently shown that providingyoung children with a better start in life improves their performance and participationin school and contributes significantly to their being productive citizens in adulthood.At this point, responsibility for ECCD has been devolved to local governments.The National ECCD Coordinating Council has already developed a tool to assistlocal planners in preparing Local Investment Plans for ECCD which may later beintegrated into their yearly budget proposals. With yearly appropriations for ECCDat the local levels, the sustainability of the programme is much more likely.

• Development of tools and guidelines for parent education, involvement andmobilization of communities. This aims to harness and develop parents’ strengthsas providers of ECCD at home, active partners and advocates for children throughparent education and livelihood assistance to help bring about economic comfortand self-sufficiency for disadvantaged families.

• Creation and activation of ECCD committees at the provincial, municipal/city andbarangay levels. To ensure the proper implementation of RA 8980, the creation andmobilization of committees at the provincial, municipal/city, and barangay levels isbeing pursued in the first regions implementing the programme, along with theother local government units who have already begun establishing their respectiveECCD systems. This will allow closer monitoring and supervision of the programme.It will also help promote local autonomy and a sense of programme ownershipwithin communities.

The last decade has shown a remarkable improvement in both quality and quantity ofprogrammes and policies for ECCD in the Philippines. The Philippines is now in an excellentposition to make major advances in ECCD programming. Set against the backdrop ofnew technologies and nearly a century’s worth of rich knowledge and experiences todraw upon, prospects are indeed bright for a new generation of healthy, well-roundedFilipinos who are to become the new leaders of tomorrow.

UNICEF Philippines


UNICEF EAPRO

EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES

THAILAND


PARTICIPATORY DEVELOPMENT FOR CHILDREN’S QUALITY OF

LIFE AT THE EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT CENTRE

THAILAND

Background

Daycare centres in Thailand have become a popular resource for parents who work andhave no one at home to take care of their young children. In 2002, there were 6.1 millionThai children aged zero to five years or about 9.4 per cent of the total population of 63million. Children spend six to eight hours a day at the daycare centres. Most centres are runby the Government (79.8 per cent) including the Early Childhood Development Centres(ECDC) which are managed by the Community Development Department, Ministry of Interior.

The national government has a policy to promote the quality of daycare centres and childcaretakers, and the Health Division under the Ministry of Health is the key unit in trainingchild caretakers. It has piloted a child daycare model and is developing a simple handbookon growth, development and health for use by parents. The Thai National Child DevelopmentPlan was expected to be completed by 2003 to ensure children’s health and developmentand to protect the child’s rights. Under the Plan, children are expected to be cared for in amore systematic, integrative, holistic and goal-oriented way in a supportive family and healthycommunity.

Presently, there are still many variables associated with daycare centres including qualityof service, quality of child caretakers, location, facilities, the physical environment, servicefees, and convenience. In the rural areas, people prefer to bring their young children toECDCs because they are convenient and inexpensive. However, the quality of service withinthese facilities is not always as high as privately-run facilities.

The project site is the Wiangchai district in Chiang Rai province in the northern part ofThailand. There are five subdistricts in the province run by the Tambon AuthorityOrganization (TAO), including 68 villages and 12,611 household (2002). About 98.9 per centof the population in this district are Buddhist and 85 per cent work in agriculture. There arenine health centres, 68 primary health care centres, private clinics, a drug store and a 30-bed community hospital, the Somdejprayarnsungworn Hospital.

Wiangchai district has the largest density of HIV/AIDS cases in Chiang Rai. A survey of 510children in 2001 found that there were 344 children affected by AIDS, 162 orphans and 22children at risk of life-threatening illness from HIV/AIDS-affected conditions.

In the 15 day care centres in the province surveyed there were 667 children and 34 childcaretakers (2001). Most children were reported to have malnutrition, tooth decay or delayeddevelopment.


The Participatory Development for Children’s Quality of Life in Early Childhood DevelopmentCentres Project was launched in 2000. A team of six volunteers fromSomdejprayarnsungworn Hospital’s community medical science unit and three dentists


was formed to undertake the Project. The Project was established as an entry point toenhance the health and quality of life of people in the community. Fifteen ECDCs wereselected for the Project based on their accessibility, their care for young children, and thelevel of family and community support.

Following decentralization, the ECDCs were transferred to the responsibility of the localTAOs. As involvement in early childhood development was new to the Tambon authorities,UNICEF’s Thailand Country Office provided support for the Project to introduce the TAOto the concept of integrated early childhood care and development and to assist them toincrease their capacity and skills in this area.

Using an integrative approach, the Project hoped to promote concepts of holistic healthand health promotion, as well as increase community and stakeholder involvement, tostrengthen the services and technical capacity of the ECDCs. This would be done byencouraging participatory learning to empower parents, child caretakers, public healthpersonnel, community leaders and TAO officers, enabling them to work together on behalfof their community’s children and development needs.

By supported learning, the Project hoped to assist families and communities to identifytheir children’s health needs and problems. It was also hoped that participants would beencouraged to share the responsibility for developing guidelines and protocols for theprovision of early childhood care in their district and community, and to develop a networkof support and information sharing enabling the community to respond to, and to manage,the care and development of their own children.

The Project’s objectives were:

1. To improve children’s health and quality of life.2. To improve early childhood development centres.3. To empower community competency in problem-solving skills and enhance

community learning by using participatory processes.

The activities funded by UNICEF were:

1. Community relationship building

The project team approached community leaders, TAO chairmen, and public healthpersonnel to inform them about the Project and request cooperation and assistance.

2. Child’s health problems identification

The Project team, with public health personnel from health centres and childcaretakers, conducted weight and height measurings, dental checkups anddevelopmental assessments, using Child Development Assessment Guidelinesdeveloped by the Northern Child Development Centre. Data were recorded andanalyzed at three monthly intervals. Information about healthy eating and nutrition,for example eating sweets or drinking bottled milk, was prepared and passed ontoparents.

3. Participatory learning

The project team conducted meetings at each ECDC. Parents, community leadersand public health personnel from health centres were invited. Participatory learningusing group processes and group work was conducted. Workshops covered


assessment and sharing of data on a child’s health and development; identifyingproblems and their causes; encouraging participants to use problem solving techniques;providing health information; and reminding parents to practice the strategies theyselected.

4. Child caretaker training

All child caretakers were asked to attend two days of training on the nature andneeds of children, developmental stimulation, self-care, and children’s mental anddental health.

5. Creating understanding and cooperation

The Project team met with community leaders, TAO chairmen, village headmenand public health volunteers to discuss the importance of children, and their rolesand responsibilities in child development.

6. Networking

The Project team encouraged parents, community leaders, and TAO officers tohold their own meetings so they could think, plan, implement, analyze, evaluateand share their efforts and outcomes. In addition, the Project team invited otherconcerned organizations and individuals to join with the community to work onchild development issues.

7. Monitoring and evaluation

The project team met with child caretakers, parents, and community leaders toobserve any changes in thinking, attitude, and/or behaviour. Advice and suggestionswere given. Evaluation was performed using child health and development data,observation, and verbal feedback.


Successes

“I was the one who initiated the ECDC (in my village). My daughter was in the first groupand now she’s got a bachelor degree.”

Community leader, Jorcharoen village

After initiating activities without financial assistance, and with the support only ofvolunteers, the gradual and demonstrable impact of the Project has grown to the pointwhere it has now raised considerable awareness and support for IECD in state-manageddaycare centres in the Wiangchai district. TAO now have the capacity to provide integratedhealth, nutrition and education through the ECDCs.

The project has also been aided by a more general awareness of IECD in recent years as aresult of support from Government agencies and others. This combined with its activitieshas seen a strengthening of community support and participation in early childhood careand development, another important success for the Project. A good example of this isthe Ban Dai village, in the Project area. An ECDC was built in the village in 1993, but wasunder-resourced and under used with just one child caretaker, and only 14 children. The


centre was taken over by the TAO in 2002, and through the Project, the TAO chairmanbecame aware of the importance of providing suitable facilities to develop and monitorthe progress of young children in the village. As a result, TAO funding for the developmentof a new, bigger ECDC for the village was provided. The newly completed centre now hasmore rooms and a larger playground, allowing it to care for more children. It is also bettersituated, between the old daycare centre and the health centre.

A similar impact has been seen in the Jorcharoen village. An ECDC was built for thevillage in 1985 at the initiative of the local temple which was concerned for children left athome alone while parents went off to work. The centre was originally operated out of acommunity meeting room, with two childcare workers and 37 children. Through theassistance of the Project, and with strong community support, the ECDC has been expandedto three activity rooms, a dining room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a playground. There arenow 62 children and four childcare workers. Two of the workers are the original two thatstarted with the ECDC in 1985, showing the level of responsibility and commitment manyof the local providers feel - a major asset to the Project.

At both ECDC’s it was the participation of parents and the community that was mostcritical to the success and expansion of the centres. Empowered through the Project andwith the support of TAO and its chairman and officers, villages were able to ensure theirchildren had access to quality care and services.

Other demonstrable successes include improvement of children’s nutritional status, dentalhealth and development in Project areas. Between January 2001 and December 2002, thepercentage of children with a healthy nutritional status increased by nearly 10 per cent inProject villages. The dental health of the children surveyed also increased.

Further notable success was the increased level of involvement of parents in their children’sdevelopment. Many parents attended ECDC meetings and became more conscientiousabout daily care activities such as monitoring their children’s eating habits, ensuring theirnutritional requirements were being met and so on.

“For the new ECDC I am happy to help TAO grow more trees around the buildings”

“There was no money to build the fence around the ECDC so people performed religiousactivities to raise funds”

Comments from parents

Child caretakers at ECDCs, like the parents, also became more knowledgeable, and throughthat knowledge, more empowered. Project evaluators reported that many caretakers weremotivated by their Project involvement and sought out further training in addition to thatprovided by the Project. This further increased their skill level and assisted them in ensuringthat their centre provided developmental appropriate environments for the children intheir care. The ECDCs improved in terms of the quality of service, nutritional provisions,learning materials and environment, and class activities and physical structure. Childcaretakers’ comments reflected these improvements:

“More educational toys and outdoor toys were bought”

“I set the lunch menu for the whole week and try to balance five groups of nutrition”


“I want to learn more about developmental stimulation”

Comments from child caretakers such as the ones above demonstrate the lessons of theProject are ongoing and self-motivating, an important requirement for long-termsustainability.

Finally, and importantly for sustainability, community leaders and the district administrativeorganization become more interested as a result of the Project in children’s growth anddevelopment. This was reflected in both policy and in funding.


With the success of the Project came certain challenges. The Project, through its awarenessraising, also raised new needs and expectations within the community. As parents andvillages became educated on the importance of early childhood care and development,they increasing made use of the Project’s services. The popularity of the Project, and thedemands this put on its limited resources, was a major challenge for staff. Time managementbecame increasingly important, and not all ECDC’s were able to be visited as regularly asplanned.

Another concern for Project staff was the level of their own skills and knowledge. As theProject began as a voluntary activity, commitment more than professional caregiving skillswere initially more important. Once the Project received funding and expanded its scope,some became concerned that they did not have a formal education in paediatrics. Somestaff were also concerned by their lack of experience in programme design and problemmanagement. Further, while there existed ways to monitor and evaluate the childrenattending the ECDCs, there did not exist tools for monitoring and evaluating the Projectitself, and its outputs and outcomes. The need, therefore, to build the capacity of not justparents, but also community carers, and project staff also had to be addressed. To this end,workshops and seminars were held for staff, and specialists were invited to come and speakand provide technical support and guidance.

Finally, the TAO, which oversees the management of ECDCs is also at a stage of transition.With increased decentralization in health and social services, the TAO is readying itself totake on increased responsibilities for childcare. Child caretakers who are currently employedby the Community Development Department will be transferred to the TAO for staffmanagement. How this will affect childcare and ECDCs in the district is unclear. But one ofthe main obstacles to increasing the level of childcare is the low salary paid to childcareworkers. As they are considered to be temporary workers child caretakers receive only aminimal salary of 4,100 Baht per month (about 100 USD) with no other benefits.

Lessons Learned

The Project was able to achieve its success due to a number of factors. One of the mostimportant factors was the commitment of the Project staff and community workers. Whilstmany of those involved did not have formal skills and training in IECD, they worked tirelesslyand undertook self-study and attended trainings to increase their skills so that they werea match for their dedication.


Sharing knowledge and building and sustaining learning within the community were otherfactors in the Project’s success. For example, local officials such as public health officerswere invited to participate in the Project. Through their participation in the Project theircapacity, and in turn their interest, in IECD was strengthened. This also had the effect ofadding to the sustainability of the Project activities by ensuring the skills developed throughit stayed in the community and could be passed on and replicated.

Further, the participatory approach of the Project enhanced local communities’ networkingand problem solving abilities. Through participatory learning they were encouraged tothink more seriously about the nutritional status, development, and dental health of theirchildren. Communities also learnt to identify and analyze problems, then how to dealwith these problems, and finally, to recognize that many of these problems were sharedones, in which they could work together as a community to solve.

The Project was also successful because it dealt with issues that directly affected parentsand provided them with easy-to-effect tools and methods to respond to these issues. Thatthe outcomes of the Project’s activities were easily identifiable, and that parents couldmonitor the progress of their efforts just simply by observing the improvements in thehealth and skills of their child also helped to motivate participants in the Project to continueto provide appropriate care and support for their children.

Networking, for example with TAO chairmen and community leaders, was also an importantskilled developed through the Project, and ensured that the Project outcomes were sharedwith all. Networking methods included providing information, conducting regular meetings,participating in and conducting workshops, frequent visits to ECDCs. All these activitiesincreased understanding of, and support for, ECDCs. The contributions of TAO chairmenand other community leaders in encouraging support for ECDCs, as well as in policy andbudgetary support for ECDCs were also important and greatly appreciated.

Future Directions

At the time of publication, the TAO is preparing apolicy on children which will state that childdevelopment work should be integrated into theTAO structure and scope of work. Further,recognizing the importance of early childhoodcare and development, it will stipulated that plansand a budget for childcare should be devisedannually, and the ECDC should be included as partof this yearly plan.

At a local level, key persons for each area or villageshould be identified so to ensure continuity,monitoring and evaluation of activities occursregularly. These individuals could be drawn frompublic health offices, health centres, schools ortemples.

UNICEF EAPRO/00342/Youkonton


Regular training should also be provided to child caretakers at ECDCs. In addition, morecaretakers, and in particular, more skilled caretakers should be recruited to ensure bothproper environments are provided to children, and ratios of caretaker to children are lessthan 1 to 20.

Integrated early childhood development programmes must be continued and strengthened.A holistic approach is necessary and socio-economic-environmental factors should bemanaged properly and with care so children may grow and develop to their potentialwithin supportive communities.


UNICEF EAPRO/00177

PROMOTING FAMILY LEARNING

THROUGH EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY

VIET NAM


5 United Nations, Viet Nam. (1999). Common Country Assessment. Hanoi. p. iii6 Ibid.

EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE FOR DEVELOPMENT

VIET NAM

Background

Since 1986, when the “doi moi” reform process was launched in Viet Nam, there hasbeen significant progress in improving the overall well-being of the Vietnamese people.According to the most recent Common Country Assessment5, poverty has been reducedfrom more than 70 per cent in the mid-1980s to closer to 37 per cent. The assessmentreports that average real income more than doubled in this period; life expectancy hasbeen extended by five years to 67 years of age; nine out of ten adults are now literate;primary and lower secondary enrolment rates have increased; infant mortality has declinedto 37 per 1,000 live births; and more people have access to clean water, sanitation andbetter health care.

However, despite these overall improvements in the quality and quantity of life for themajority of people in Viet Nam, in rural disadvantaged areas many young children are stillsuffering. There are a number of reasons for this. Health and education services may notbe available, or parents may be unable to provide good care for their children due topressures placed upon families by poverty, isolation, harsh living environments, heavyworkloads, or gender inequalities. In ethnic minority groups, literacy levels remain low,especially in women, while primary school dropout and repetition rates remain high.

Traditionally, the approach to ECD by both the Vietnamese government and UNICEF hasbeen sectoral, with the Education sector taking the lead. As is true in many other countries,this has resulted in the term ECD becoming synonymous with early childhood education,often in the form of kindergartens, pre-schools and day care. This is not to suggest thathealth and other services are not being provided for young children and their families butrather, they are not perceived or delivered as part of an integrated approach to ECD.

The first day care centres and kindergartens were established in Viet Nam in 19566. Overthe years early childhood care (ECC) subsidies gave rise to a nationwide network of daycare centres and more formal kindergartens. However, the economic and agriculturalreforms of 1986 had a dramatic effect on both the utilization and number of early childcare services, especially in rural areas. Due primarily to reduction in subsidies formaintenance and operation of early child care services in poorer rural areas, many haveclosed down over the past ten years.

At the same time, in urban and semi-urban areas, there has been an increase in enrolmentin ECC services, especially since 1995. This is also true in some more affluent rural areas.However, these services are, for the most part, only available for five year old children, aspart of a national effort to prepare pre-school children for primary education and ultimatelyincrease enrolment rates in primary schools.

Over the past five years there have been significant changes in terms of the Government’sapproach to early childhood education and care. Firstly, in January 1999, a new Education


Law came into effect making early childhood education part of the national formal systemfor the first time. Then on 15 November 2002, the Vietnamese government, at the proposalof the Minister of Education and Training, issued Decision No. 161. This landmark decisionarticulated that the State would continue to increase investment in preschool education,expand the system of crèches and kindergartens, give priority to the development ofpreschool education in socio-economically disadvantaged and geographically isolatedareas, disseminate child care knowledge to families, and create conditions for children todevelop emotionally, cognitively, socially and physically. In other words, for the first time,early childhood education, care and development was being promoted by the Governmentas a priority.


In 2001, funds for IECD project were made available to UNICEF regions, under a partnershipagreement with the Government of the Netherlands. A regional package, which sought topromote IECD was prepared by the East Asia Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) and selectedcountries in the region including Lao PDR (see Lao PDR case study) and Viet Nam. Theaim of the Viet Nam Country Office component of this package, designed for the periodJanuary 2002 to September 2003, was to adopt an integrated approach to ECD that linkedcommunity-based actions to childhood development and care.

The focus of this case study is one component of that Project - the processes involved indeveloping, launching and implementing the National IECD Media Campaign.

The National IECD Media Campaign

The first step in implementing the Project was the creation of the Viet Nam Country OfficeIECD Taskforce. The Taskforce would be a vehicle for cross-sectoral representation, planningand decision making. Amongst other activities, it would be responsible for the developmentand finalization of ECD messages related to childcare, health and nutrition, hygiene andsanitation.

The first step of this process, involved gathering together all existing ECD messages fromacross the sectoral programmes, and compiling them into a list. Following this a numberof meetings were held whereby the messages, after much discussion and debate, werevoted on according to the following list of criteria:

1. Those based on the latest research with regard to holistic ECD.2. Those based on principles and practice of the CRC and CEDAW.3. Those not covered by other sectors.4. Those that “piggyback” or complement critical messages of other sectors.5. Those that translate into practical, doable actions for caregivers and/or children.

Eventually four existing themes and 12 messages were agreed upon. These later formedthe foundation for the National IECD Media Campaign (see box). It was intended thatthese core themes and messages, which would be addressed by all sectors, would add a“plus plus” factor (where one looks at each intervention with a child and/or caregiver andseeks to make the intervention more holistic) and provide a more integrated approach toworking with and for infants, young children and their caregivers.


Theme one: Critical Period - The most critical time in the development of a child’s brain,body, social and emotional development is from conception to 8 years of life.Messages1. Healthy brain and physical development begins in the womb.2. Babies are ready and eager to learn from day one of their lives. They are born with the

basic capacity to see, hear, touch, smell and taste. They communicate and have individualstyles, temperaments, interests and learning abilities.

3. Mental health problems (particularly maternal depression), family stress or violence,and substance abuse effect brain development and function of infants and young children.Children who experience extreme or chronic stress during the early years are at greaterrisk of developing learning, behavioural and emotional difficulties that can last throughouttheir lives.

Theme two: Nurturing relationships - Emotional, social, and moral development, as well ascognitive and physical ability are deeply affected by early relationships with parents andother caregivers.4. Healthy early learning development depends on loving, nurturing and dependable

relationships with key people in a child’s life. Babies who are nurtured and loved willhave a much greater chance of being self-confident, emotionally and socially secure,and achieve more in school.

5. Children whose fathers (and other important males) take part in nurturing and caregivingare often healthier, learn better and are more socially and emotionally secure.

6. Everyday routines with caregivers are opportunities for promoting social, emotional,cognitive and moral development of young children.

Theme three: Equality and Inclusion - It is the right of every girl and boy, disabled and non-disabled, from every part of the country, to be nurtured in a healthy, safe, caring environment.7. Both girls and boys are born with the same potential to develop skills in language,

music, arts, sports, sciences, etc. Their holistic development depends on the opportunitiesand experiences they receive in all areas of these areas.

8. Every child can learn and be a joy to a family. Infants and children who are disabledhave equal rights to be included in every aspect of family and community life.

9. Every child should be given encouragement and opportunities. Children from ethnicminority groups, those in need of special protection and children from all socio-economicgroups should be represented, addressed, and included in all programming.

Theme four: How children learn and develop - Children learn and develop best in child-centred, play-based and developmentally appropriate learning environments.10. A child’s self-confidence affects every area of their development. It is important to build

the self-esteem and confidence of every child.11. Children learn best through play. Pressure does not help the child to learn faster - or

better.12. A safe, clean physical and social environment encourages exploration, curiosity and

competence.

During this time a three-day IECD Media Orientation Workshop was also held for a groupof creative people (including artists, writers, illustrators, song writers, radio and televisionbroadcasters, journalists, pre-school children researchers, kindergarten teachers, caregiversof the children with a disability) and line ministry staff (Health, Education, Committee forPopulation, Family and Children, and Viet Nam Women’s Union) who would be involvedin developing the prototype materials. The Taskforce’s finalized themes and messageswere presented to the workshop and refined.

The objective of the workshop was to build upon participants existing expertise byproviding new ideas, concepts and understandings in the area of IECD, and productionguidelines to develop media for, about and with children, as well as to begin to developthe prototypes for the IECD materials. The output from this workshop included draft copiesof two children’s books (My Wonderful Grandpa and The Little Curious Ty).


Field assessment (KAP/Key Family Practice Survey) process

At the same time a KAP (Knowledge Attitudes and Practices) Survey of caregivers in thearea of ECD, was developed by UNICEF, the Viet Nam Women’s Union (VWU) and the Ministryof Education and Training MoET). It was conducted in three districts in the provinces of HaGiang, Quang Tri and Tra Vinh. The objectives of the study were: (1) to assess specificknowledge caregivers (family members and educators) hold about infant/child development;(2) to compile a list of commonly held attitudes and practices on child-rearing and nurturing;and (3) to determine caregivers’ beliefs and perceptions about how children learn and developin different ethnic groups in project areas (H’mong and Tay ethnic groups in Northernmountainous areas, Kinh ethnic group in the poor central areas, and Khmer ethnic group inthe South). It also aimed to propose recommendations to improve quality of childcarepractices through enhancing the knowledge and practices of caregivers in families and incommunities.

The qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis process took place over aperiod of six months (April to September 2002). The data was collected by way of in-depth interviews and surveys conducted over five to six days in each of the four communesselected. The target groups surveyed included parents and grandparents, kindergartenteachers in communes, and siblings.

The findings revealed that while there were many strengths in terms of parents andcaregivers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices related to caregiving practices, there wasalso a need to build upon these strengths by introducing new knowledge. In other words,the findings of the KAP survey, along with the findings of the Key Family Practices Surveywhich had been conducted by the Health and Nutrition Programme in Son La and SocTrang provinces, reinforced the need to promote the key themes that had been previouslyidentified by the IECD Task Force, and would late be used by the Media Campaign. That is:

1. Critical Period - The most critical time in the development of a child’s brain, body,social and emotional development is from conception to eight years of life.

2. Nurturing relationships - Emotional, social, and moral development, as well ascognitive and physical ability are deeply affected by early relationships with parentsand other caregivers.

3. Equality and Inclusion - It is the right of every girl and boy, disabled and non-disabled,from every part of the country, to be nurtured in a healthy, safe, caring environment.

4. How children learn and develop - Children learn and develop best in child-centred,play-based and developmentally appropriate learning environments.

When, in November 2002, the Vietnamese Prime Minister issued Decision No. 161, formallyacknowledging its support for early childhood education, care and development, withpriority given to disadvantaged areas, it seemed the perfect time for UNICEF to seriouslybegin considering supporting the Vietnamese government by launching a National MediaCampaign to promote the IECD themes and messages.

UNICEF started its advocacy for the campaign by sending formal letters to the Ministersof Culture and Information; National Committee for Population, Family and Children;Education and Training; Health; and the President of the VWU. The Government’s supportand commitment to the Media Campaign was subsequently granted at a meeting betweenUNICEF and the Ministry of Culture and Information (MoCI).


Once Government support was gained, a half-day IECD Orientation Workshop was held forkey counterparts at vice-ministerial level and department directors of the Ministries of Health;Education and Training; Culture and Information; Agriculture and Rural Development;Vietnam Youth and Women’s Unions; and the Committee for Population, Families andChildren (CPFC). During the workshop international research findings on brain developmentand the impact of media campaigns and successful social movements were presented anddiscussed, along with the findings of the recent KAP study.

Capacity building activities

Between October and December 2002, UNICEF again invited (via an advertisement inseveral newspapers) the best creative talent in the country to be involved in the Campaign.However, despite an overwhelming response to the advertisements, the quality of thecreative people who responded was limited. Therefore, in the end, those selected to bepart of the team were mostly individuals who had already been working with sectoralprogramme counterparts and thus came recommended by them. A second Media Trainingworkshop was conducted in Hanoi and was attended by some of the same people whoattended the first workshop in 2001. Also participating were some new creative people,communications staff from the key line ministries and two media persons from the south,who recommended that a similar workshop be conducted in Ho Chi Minh City.

Similarly to the 2001 workshop, the participants were involved in a two-day process ofdeveloping prototype media products, including another children’s book (Mother Henand her Chicks), a press page, a poster, and a video and radio clip. The products weredeveloped and presented on the last day of the workshop and the workshop facilitatorsprovided feedback and recommendations for improvement. For many of the creative team,the products being developed were different to any they had developed before. They hadto present short simple messages through a child’s voice rather than the traditional ùlecturestyleû that had previously been geared towards adults.

A similar workshop was later held in Ho Chi Minh City for the creative team and inter-sectoral staff in the south. Again this involved producing prototypes in the workshopsand included a trip to the field (Dong Thap) to take photos, write stories and gather ideas.During this workshop, ideas for the Campaign logo and theme song were developed, aswell as an improved layout for two of the posters.

Media development

The next stage was the actual launch of the National Media Campaign, which was set forthe 28 June 2003. A plan of preparation was developed at a Refresher-Training Workshopheld in Hanoi. At the same workshop existing gaps in product development were identified.The creative teams in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City had been working towards productdevelopment based on the guidelines and supervision they had been given at the Mediaworkshop in December the previous year. However, there were many products still to becompleted. These included a theme song, a logo, radio and television clips, editing of thefour children’s books, and completion of the posters.


Following the workshop, the Central Management Team (CMT), which was to coordinateand oversee the launch and implementation of the National Media Campaign met. TheCMT comprised of representatives from CPFC, VWU, MoET, MoCI, and Ministry of Health,as well as UNICEF staff. It was divided into four different groups each responsible forspecific aspects of the launch. The Storyline group comprised representatives from MoETand VWU and was responsible for providing feedback to the authors and ensuring thatthe children’s books were completed according to the CMT’s recommendations. TheBroadcasting group had representatives from CPFC and the Communications Programme,and was to ensure that radio clips and TV clips (three from the north and two from thesouth) were developed according to the guidelines provided at the media workshops, andthat a theme song was selected. To this end invitations to develop a theme song weresent out in May to song composers with the intention that one would be chosen beforethe launch. The Press group had representatives from the VWU and the Health and NutritionProgramme, and was responsible for ensuring that feature pages, articles, and reportswere being developed by journalists and that papers were committed to publishing IECD-related articles. Lastly, the Photos/Illustrators group had representatives from EducationProgramme, and was charged with overseeing the development of the logo, photos forposters, and illustrations for the children’s books.

Each group was responsible for ensuring that their media products were completed, field-tested and ready to be launched on 28 June.

Unfortunately because everyone on the CMT also had full-time jobs, the tasks of eachgroup were not always easy to complete. However, by a process whereby the creativeteams submitted products, the CMT provided feedback, and then the creative teamsresponded to the feedback and re-submitted products (often a number of times), thefollowing products were ready for the launch of the ùWonderful First Yearsû NationalIECD Media Campaign Launch:

• A logo• Media slogans - Everything a Child Needs, A Caregiver Can Provide, and The First

Three Years, the Opportunity of a Lifetime• Four Children’s Books• Six posters for caregivers• One Public Service Announcement on IECD• Five radio spots• Five video spots for television• Articles to be published in the newspapers

Other activities included a meeting prior to the Campaign launch with the Editors-in-Chiefof all newspapers at the Central Party Ideology and Culture Division, to present the overallCampaign plan and formally request responsive actions from the mass media as well asreach agreement on the main stories. A press conference was also held three days beforethe official launch.

IECD Media Launch & Campaign activities

28 June was chosen as the launch date of the Campaign as it was also Viet Nam FamilyDay, and in many ways the launch was a celebration of family and young children. Thelaunch was strongly supported by high-ranking government officials (the Vice-Prime


Minister, as well as Vice-Ministers of CFPC, MoCI, MoET, and VWU), at the same timethose who attended also attended as parents, many bringing their families with them.

Unlike many other media campaign launches, there were few speeches and more emphasison the involvement of children and their families. During the launch the Campaign PublicService Announcement was screened, as were extracts of five video clips. Interviews withfamilies were also a feature and there was a performance of selected songs and gift giving.The launch was attended by about 200 people, including donor agencies, NGOs andembassy staff. Audience feedback was positive and encouraging.

Unfortunately, following the launch, the Media Campaign was put on hold for some months.One of the reasons for this was that all those on the Campaign’s CMT also had full-timejobs making full-time co-ordination or development and implementation of a media planvery difficult.


Successes

The coordination of a National Media Campaign proved to be a steep learning curve forall involved, and while it was not without its frustrations and difficulties there were alsomany successes. This was especially true in terms of breaking new ground by workingwith a team of both government staff and independent creative people, working cross-sectorally (on the CMT), the development of “child and family friendly” products, and thelaunch itself.

The inclusion of creative people in the core team was unique and their contributions werea positive and valuable feature of the Campaign. Media campaigns often rely only on ECDexperts in government (or NGOs) and do not involve creative “experts” (artists, writers,musicians) in the process. Providing ECD orientation to the creative team was required,but this then allowed them to take the basic information and re-interpret it through theircreative lenses for use in multi-media format, enabling the information to reach a fargreater audience, in a style that would also be most easily understood.

Another successful and highly collaborative cross-sectoral process was the preparationof the list of core messages. Those involved in developing the list began by reviewing allexisting messages related to ECD, in order to assess what had been highlighted and whathad been deemed important by sectoral programmes. In doing so they were able to buildupon what already existed and recognize the work already completed. Linking thedevelopment of key messages to the KAP Study meant that rather than the identificationof key messages being left to the “experts” alone, village voices were also included throughthe participatory processes involved in the Study.

Further, the very hands-on IECD workshops, which brought government representativesand creative individuals together to create media tools (books, songs radio spots and soon), was a great success. This was a collaborative, supportive and focused way ofdeveloping media products, as well as developing relationships between those involvedin the process.


These workshops were also held not just centrally, but in the north and south of the countryas well. The representation of these two diverse regions was essential to ensuring thatthe media produced reflected their concerns as much as those of the centre. Localizingthe workshops and the membership of participants was a further innovation and could beexpanded upon in the future.

As mentioned throughout this case study, many of the processes undertaken by the creativeteam, the line Ministry and UNICEF staff while developing the Campaign were new andrequired changes in thinking as well as practice. For the creative team, a paradigm shift interms of the type of messages and products being created as well as the audience theywere developing them for, was required. At the same time the CMT members, many ofwhom had never been involved in developing a national media campaign, were learningon the job.


A major constraint in the implementation of the Media Campaign was the lack of aformalized plan. Ideally this should have been finalized and put in place before the launchto ensure that the media products would be disseminated and broadcast immediatelyfollowing the launch. Because this was the first time a cross-sectoral National MediaCampaign such as this had been attempted there was also great need for flexibility withinsuch a plan, in order to be able to learn from experience and respond accordingly.

So too a plan and timeline (developed and agreed upon by all members of the CMT andcreative people) as well as TORs for the creative people may have been helpful in ensuringthat deadlines were adhered to and confusion related to roles and responsibilities kept toa minimum.

The lack of a full-time coordinator was also a major constraint. Attempts were made tohire one or two consultants with media expertise to work full-time in a coordinating role.However, the right person or people were not able to be identified.

Limited knowledge within the creative team of IECD concepts was also a challenge.Although the IECD Media workshops were highly regarded, in order to achieve theparadigm shift that was required for traditional concepts of children to be replaced, moretime was required. Coupled with the fact that this was the first time many of the creativeteam had developed these types of media products for children, and that the transferenceof the messages into stories was quite a difficult task, this sometimes resulted in delayswith product development.

Lessons Learned

As in all projects, time and pre-planning are two key factors to be considered whendesigning a national media campaign. While it is impossible to put a time frame on thedevelopment process, most of the CMT and creative team members consulted duringevaluation of the Project agreed that the time lines were often too short. As mentionedabove, the development of a timeline with steps and dates outlined from the outset andTORs for various groups and individuals would also serve to reduce confusion andfrustration.


It is also crucial to have a mutually agreed upon media plan in place, along with completedproducts and formal agreements with all those who are responsible for the implementationof the plan, before the launch. Without this, the initial impact of the launch may bedissipated.

As also discussed earlier, having at least one full-time coordinator is essential to ensurethat agreed upon plans are implemented. So too, it is important to develop a plan forevaluating the development and implementation process of the Campaign as well as theimpact.

From a broader perspective, as the Media Campaign continues into its second phase, it isimportant to ensure it is fully integrated with existing or ongoing IECD activities incommunities. In this case it requires that the Media Campaign serve as a reinforcement ofthe Parenting Effectiveness/Awareness classes taking place at commune level. The booksand posters that have been, and are being, developed for the Media Campaign shouldform an integral part of the classes for parents and caregivers, as should other IECDmaterials developed in the future.

The Participatory Rapid Assessment (PRA) activities (the PRA was conducted under anothercomponent within the Project) and issues identified by commune Plans of Action shouldalso be incorporated as the Media Campaign continues into a second phase. In this wayinformation gathered by PRA and presented in the Plans of Action could be consideredwhen developing new products. This may be particularly appropriate for local radio ortelevision broadcasts which focus on emerging IECD issues that have been identified by anumber of communes, or districts. In this way the communication can be truly “two-way”.

Finally, the “Wonderful First Years” National IECD Media Campaign has without doubt,been an important learning opportunity for all involved. Its continued success in its secondphase, and beyond, will depend on coordinated planning and implementation of itsactivities and Media Plan through the existing ECD-related projects and networks.

Future Directions

A Media Campaign Coordinator has now beenappointed to the Campaign. The Coordinator will beresponsible for coordination of the dissemination ofthe already developed media products as well as thedevelopment of new ones. Further to the Media Plan,the Coordinator will also be charged with formalizingagreements with television and radio stations, by wayof contracts, stipulating agreed upon conditions,including the number of time per week clips or spotswill be broadcast, and financial payment whereappropriate.

For the next stage of the National IECD Media Plan,the newly developed monitoring and evaluation plannow includes regular meetings of CMT; periodicalmonitoring trips by CMT; a first phase review; andreview/evaluation six months later.

UNICEF Vietnam


Details for these reviews/evaluations are still to be developed. Based on lessons learnt,the following strategies will be used for the remaining two years of the current countryprogramme as well as in preparations of the next country programme 2006-2010:

• Strengthen IECD advocacy on the need for a more coherent, comprehensive IECDpolicy including greater resource allocations; also advocacy that promotesownership among local communities and what they can do for their children mustbe given top priority by national and local leadership;

• Work directly with the Teachers’ College to create a new, holistic and more practicalnational curriculum for IECD that can facilitate activities of multi-age groups ofyoung children. Special attention to introduce curriculum modules to work withchildren in special need of care and protection;

• Influence, coordinate and develop partnerships with the banks and experiencedinternational NGOs in the area of IECD;

• Work directly with private sector to tap the know-how of the best professionals -corporate and individuals - with inter-sectoral counterparts to further develop IECDcommunication materials for behaviour change that follow the principle FOR,ABOUT and WITH young children;

• Demonstrate and document the advantages of inter-sectoral planning, management,implementation, monitoring and evaluation of IECD activities in demonstrationdistricts and communes;

• Consolidate Parental Education training modules for Health and Nutrition andEducation - including agreement on content, methodologies and modalities ofdelivery - to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of training and application of IECDpractices;

• Pilot low-cost and no-cost models of child-friendly development and learningenvironments that promote holistic, integrated activities to strengthen the family’srole as the primary care giver and support for children.


REFERENCE

*Albion, L (2003) Process Document Integrated Early Childhood Development:National Media Campaign - prepared for UNICEF Vietnam County Office

*Attig, G (2003) Coordinated Processes for Integrated Early Childhood Development (IECD)in Lao PDR - Prepared for UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office and the UNICEFLao Country Office

*Mundhenk, A (2003) IECD Case Study for Myanmar - Network ECCD Project prepared forUNICEF Myanmar Country Office

*Ocampo, D; Ruda, R; and Dario, R (2003) A Case Study on the National DevelopmentProcesses Leading to Republic Act 8980 (Early Childhood Care and Development Act):The Philippine Experience - prepared for UNCEF Philippines Country Office

*Satoto (2003) Final Report of Case Study on: Tanjunsari Integrated ECCD - ConsultationReport - prepared for UNICEF Indonesia Country Office

UNICEF EAPRO (2003) Towards a Region Fit for Children - An Atlas for the Sixth East Asiaand Pacific Ministerial Consultation

UNICEF EAPRO (2003) A Future for All Our Children

*UNICEF Thailand Country Office (2003) Participatory Development for Children’s Qualityof Life at the Early Childhood Development Center

*original case study documents

working towards best practices regional experience on

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