Norwegian Church Aid pledges to defeat hunger in CBCCs

The Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) has said it will liaise with other stakeholders to alleviate hunger which has affected early childhood development (ECD) education in the country.

NCA Country Representative, Stain Vallemstard, said hunger, which will affect 2.8 million people in the country, will impact heavily on ECD as children will have little or no food in the community-based childcare centres (CBCCs).

“Our support for childcare is very limited but we need to look together with other big donors to try and mobilize with them for food aid so that we help feed children in CBCCs although this would not defeat the hunger,” Vallemstard said.

He said NCA will continue s uppor t ing CBCCs with infrastructure development and learning materials.

Childhood Development Officer in the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare, Andrew Nkhoma, said government has come up with a policy to guide ECDs in the country that integrates physical and psychological and needs of the children.

“It is government’s wish through ECD policy and strategic plan that every village should have a children’s corner and a CBCC so that children’s formative years should be taken care of irrespective of rural or urban location,” Nkhoma said.

He said since inception of ECD in the country in 1989, access to ECD is at 40 percent but government is striving to push it to 72 percent by the year 2019 to contribute towards the reduction of underage deaths.

Quadria Muslim Association of Malawi (QMAM) Publicity Secretary, Jaffer Kawinga, said faith-based institutions play an important role as gatekeepers of large faith communities and when effectively utilized, they successfully mobilize and sustain a vibrant grass-root movement in the promotion of ECD.

“We believe religious institutions strongly address the moral and ethical challenges of human society which have a close connection to the many challenges our children face these days,” Kawinga said.

He said through the CBCCs and children’s corner centres, children will be able to learn good behaviour and different life-saving skills.

QMAM has been implementing the ECD project since 2013 with funding from NCA amounting to K87 million targeting Sub- Traditional Authority Kachenga in Balaka.