THE SCORE ECD PROJECT
Strengthening the Capacity of Religious women in Early Childhood Development, (SCORE ECD) is a project that promotes holistic development of children. The first phase of the project ran from 2014 to September 2017. The project which is being coordinated by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) with support from Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is implemented in three countries in Malawi, Zambia and Kenya in the ACWECA region.
The USA founded Agency works with ACWECA and National Associations of Sister congregations in the implementation of this project. The first phase had 48 congregations with over 100 communities of sisters on board. At the early stages of the implementation, the project focused more on building the technical capacity of the sisters, enhancing organisational sustainability, networking and learning to expand congregational quality in Early Childhood Development (ECD).
The project catered for the most vulnerable children within the age bracket of zero to five (0-5) years with a focus on children 0-2 years, some of whom are disabled and/or infected/affected with HIV/AIDS across all dioceses in the three countries and in remote communities.
ACHIEVEMENTS
One of the major achievements CRS realised during the SCORE ECD I Project was through investment in capacity building, accompaniment and institutional strengthening of the sisters and sister organisations. They were able to train 96 sisters as ECD Master Trainers, educate 3,147 sisters and 11, 806 care givers on early stimulation, positive parenting, health, 1000 days nutrition, protection of children from violence and fathers’ involvement in ECD.
Another achievement was improved organisational sustainability through trainings in human resource and financial administration, computer skills, monitoring and reporting, proposal writing for local fund raising, and networking and collaboration with early childhood communities (traditional leaders, churches, schools, governments and non-governmental agencies) and use of local and national media for awareness raising and advocacy in ECD
SCORE ECD II
The SCORE ECD II project kicked off in September 2017 and, will run up to 2021. The project has continued with institutional capacity strengthening of sister institutions both technically and organisationally. It is hoped that Catholic Sisters’ partners will fully take on the ownership of integrated ECD interventions in their respective communities.
This phase of the project focuses on children aged from 0-2 year’s age group and involves 1,500 pregnant and lactating mothers and it is implemented by 23 sister congregations and Associations.
ACWECA’S ROLE
In this phase of the project, ACWECA is expected to take on a wider role of advocacy so as to influence ECD at regional and international levels. And one of the key roles is that of fundraising opportunities for ECD expansion, and eventual priming of multi-country grants for SCORE ECD activities in the whole Region.
ACWECA SCORE ECD Coordinator will orient all Secretary Generals of the associations of the African region on the purpose and objectives of the ECD Champions.
ACWECA will also take on other awareness raising activities through documenting and publishing stories on ECD issues from Champions in the region. This is aimed at influencing ECD policy.
But most importantly, ACWECA is taking a step to include ECD into the Formation Syllabus of women religious in the region. This is aimed at ensuring that women religious are sensitised on the importance of ECD issues right from the time of their formation.
Additionally, ACWECA is including topics on ECD in all its formation programmes so as to scale up the knowledge in ECD to congregational leaders and sisters in general.