ORATILE DAY CARE-ECD
Oratile ECD Centre started with 14 children and 2 staff members in August 2010, and to date we accommodate about 110 children in the centre and 8 staff members including kitchen and office admin. We have received confirmation from the nearest public school that children from our school perform better than those from other ECD’s in the centre. In the recent survey that was done by Hope worldwide, our school came top in terms of feeding children proper meals. Only 3% of our children were found to be under weight. We have parents coming to our school daily to inquire about space availability to register their children in our centre. It always pains me whenever I have to turn them away, but I’m left with no choice as our operational space is limited. It’s my heart dream to acquire a bigger land space so that we can be able to accommodate more children and employ more staff members for job creation.
We started by operating from a corrugated iron sheets shack with no toilet or a separate kitchen, but seeing the rate in which community support our organization, I used the entire package I received when I get retrenched and started developing the centre. By now we have 4 classrooms which are properly build, 7 kiddies’ toilets, 4 basins, separate kitchen and wall security for children’s safety. We offer 2 healthy meals to all the children in the centre.
Mr KA Kgari, the founder of Oratile ECD Centre have given away his RDP residential house to turn it into a centre in order to have peace of mind now knowing that children have adequate safe space for holistic development, as a result he now doesn’t have a proper place to stay but it worries him less since he do have small room to lay his head right in the centre where he is also serving as a care taker.
ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND
STAFF TRAINING
In the 5 years that we have been working in Diepsloot, we have discovered that given the level of education of the ECD practitioners and the demands and pressures on them as they care for many
children, the formal NQF Level 4 training is essential. With our 6 teachers in the centre, we are doing everything in our power to ensure that they are academically equipped to be able to offer necessary stimulation to the children in our centre. By far 3 of our staff members are studying for NQF level 4, while others regularly attend different workshops to learn the basics of children stimulation. The social service department is of great help to the ECD’s in the area as they often organize those workshops.