Overview > The ELMA Foundation > Early Childhood Development > Scaling ECD in South Africa
Special Initiative:
Scaling Early Childhood Development in South Africa
Over the last decade, The ELMA Foundation has been investing to strengthen and expand the Early Childhood Development (ECD) ecosystem in South Africa, enabling universal access to ECD.
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To do this, ELMA’s strategy has been:
To support the development of government systems required for ECD services to be delivered at scale through the creation of Ilifa Labantwana, a non-profit, systems-focused, ECD technical support organization dedicated to strengthening the financing, data, and workforce systems
To support the building and expanding of platforms needed to provide ECD services at scale:
SmartStart, an early learning social franchise, aims to create a platform that can provide quality early learning to 1 million three and four-year-olds each year
The Unlimited Child, a non-profit, focused on scaling a center-based quality improvement model
Ntataise Trust works to strengthen and systematize a national ECD network of 21 self-sufficient, independent organizations operating in eight of South Africa’s nine provinces
Impande provides a comprehensive package of quality ECD services to a network of ECD centers in southern Kwa-Zulu Natal and northern Eastern Cape
To strengthen core ECD training and support institutions, like TREE-ECD, Khululeka, and the Early Learning Resources Unit, which form the backbone of ECD services and were the building blocks of ECD service provision in South Africa
To effectively co-fund to increase the scale, reach and impact of individual investments, alongside peer funding institutions, such as the DG Murray Trust, the FirstRand Foundation, Yellowwoods Social Investments, This Day Foundation, the Standard Bank Tutuwa Community Foundation, Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, the Allan and Gill Gray Foundation, DRK Foundation and the Lego Foundation.
Current Investments
