Training for caregivers who work at CBCC’s in Southern Malawi ended on the 2nd of August 2018. Of the initial 21 participants representing 11 x CBCC’s 5 people dropped out. As a result 16 participants were presented with “certificates of completion” at a ceremony held on the 24th of August. Each participant was assessed through a combination of oral & written exams. The highest score was 92% while the lowest was 52%.

The ECD training covered the below 8 x topics:
Early childhood development
Child development
Special Education Needs and Disability
Play and Learning Environment
Child Protection and Safe-Guarding Children
Observations
Activity Plan/ Risk Assessment
TALULAR (Teaching and Learning Using Locally Available Resources)

The graduation was a happy event attended by the Seibo Managing Director, Mr. Nkata, Group Village Headman Bwanamsompho, Director of Chilingani CBO Mr. Ndaluza, 2 MTCC Outreach Team members & the proud graduates.

The Director of Seibo Mr Peter Nkata said the caregivers should take their work as a calling from God to take care of children. He said that for Seibo to continue with the program it depends on the caregiver’s commitment to work. He also thanked the caregivers for volunteering to work without pay and for taking care of other people’s’ children. He encouraged the caregivers to continue helping their communities and also to apply for further training in the future.

Mr Luka Ndaluza, Director of Chilingani CBO, thanked Seibo for the help that it has rendered to the CBCCs under his CBO since 2016.

Group Village Headman Bwanamsompho thanked Seibo for the training. “The CBCC caregivers never had such a great opportunity for training. I remember in the past the caregivers were coming for training once in a month which was not enough and it was also a problem since they were walking long distances, but the coming of the training to our community was helpful”.

The Total Cost

From an overall budget of MK 610,080 (received as a donation made direct to Seibo Malawi) below is a summary of the expenses incurred in delivering the ECD training
Teaching and Learning materials cost: MK 103,365.00
Food for caregivers: MK 193,980.94
Lunch Allowance for facilitators: MK 172,000.00
Fuel for transport: MK 77,000.00

Total amount spent: MK 546,345.94
Due to a change in the final numbers the actual costs were slightly lower than the estimated costs leaving Seibo with a positive balance of MK 63,734.06. As the funding for the ECD training came from an individual donation we will discuss with the donor as to how they would like to proceed to use the remaining balance.