Rwanda : Child Day Cares in Rwanda

In Rwanda a Child Day Care Centers (Créche) are relatively a new tradition of early childhood development and education. These centers exist in almost all communities in the countryside, and in Kigali city.

Though these centers are very expensive especially in Kigali city, the centers have contributed widely to the education system and it is almost imperative that each parent wants to have the children at the day care centers.

The centers provides a safe and nurturing “home away from home” with an early child education designed to help infants grow and learn every day by exploring and making new discoveries, proved to be an enriching experience for a child.

It offers activities such as, social interactions, and experiences that simply can’t be done in a home environment because of the expense of the materials and the startup time involved.

Although children need a lot of parental care and support as top priority, parents barely spend a lot of hours at home.

It caters for the children from the age 0-3 or up to 4 years old, offering an early child education.

A good centre can help the children not to miss the parents and feel completely left alone.

The dove day care is located in Nyarutarama, Kigali city, it is owned by a Ugandan national.

She decided to put up the centre following unpleasant situations children would grow up, in the absence of their parents. Some of the children did not experience love until under the care of our loving teacher.

“Taking a child to a place where you find scheduled activities for the children each day that, quite honestly, I couldn’t match with a home environment,” said one mum whose child attends Doves Child Care and he often exhibits learning skills that we simply didn’t teach her.

Console Uwimana, a working widow, says my son has largely benefited from Doves centre, he learnt how to speak incredibly fast and his language skills are far better compared to his fellow children. When he is away I worry less knowing that he is in safe hands and well cared for.

“He has been trained to share, love and help others, and stopped wetting his pants etc.”

The headmistress of doves Annet Masaba, says when children come to the centre the first two weeks of molding them requires a lot of attention and effort. “Getting them used to being with other children, away from their parents, siblings and other people they are used to or just their usual environment, is not very easy, but that goes away in just a few days.”

“We provide meals for them starting with breakfast- mid morning snack- lunch- evening snack.”

We have pre class- 18 months to 2 years “at this age we give them oral education including singing, reading them story books, seeing and touching pictures and a few minutes of watching and listening to educational programs on television.

At our centre fees starts range from Rwf300, 000 for full day then which starts from 07:00hrs to 16:00hrs. Then half day starts from 07:00hrs to 12:00hrs- 240, 000.

The next level is kindergarten which starts from the age of 3 to 4. At this point lessons they received in pre- class change, jolly phones (sounds), the alphabetical order, colouring, writing numbers, learning shapes, building in sand, outside play area etc.

At this age we also include Bible lessons- know and fear God, preparing them to love each other for a better and peaceful tomorrow.

At doves children are taught to love each other, when one is hurt or falls a friend comes to lend a helping hand.

Another Child Care Centre is Ecole les Hirondelles de don bosco, located near chez lando, in Kigali city, next to Kobil Filling Station.

It is run by the Catholic Church, headed by a nun Florence Liripa, who is a Congolese national.

Children experiencing bad eating habits, get the courage of eating because from group influence.

Here teachers are devoted to study and learn every child’s behavior- monitoring language of children especially the new comers straight from home- some can even reach the centre with abusive language adopted from the environment surrounding them, especially when a child at one time underwent the care of an abusive and uncaring maid.

At don bosco centre, half day starts from 07:00hrs ending at noon -120 000 and for full day starts from 07:00hrs to 17:00hrs paying school fees of 210, 000frw.

The meals are also provided for and those still using pampers can carry them with them.

These children are trained to fit in the education world at an early age so that, making them to beat those who come straight from home without experiencing kindergarten.

When a child is sick we advise them to stay at their respective homes until they pullout of their disease.

There is a huge a number of child day cares mushrooming in Rwanda due to the rapid development of the country.

Others include Lilia Child Day Care and nursery, Malaika Day Care and Nursery, Green hills Day Care, little sprouts, Rainbow Creche, Little Bears Day Care etc.

http://livinginrwanda.com/index.php/2012/07/rwanda-child-day-cares-in-rwanda/