In Sub-Saharan Africa, only 12% of children have access to early childhood programs. [1] For children living in infrastructure-poor slums facing extreme poverty, access to early childhood care is virtually non-existent. Some enterprising local mothers (dubbed “mamapreneurs”) offer informal, home-based daycare services for a nominal fee in local “baby-care centers”. This represents an improvement for many families, where the alternative is to leave their children at home alone, or with an older sibling who is pulled out of school. However, the physical environment of these informal baby-care centers is often poor, with no lighting, limited ventilation, indoor air pollution from cooking, and facilities that are often unclean and unsafe. In addition, given the lack of training and awareness about the importance of ECD, the caregivers often leave the children on the hard ground for long periods of time without appropriate attention or stimulation.

Kidogo is a social enterprise that seeks to transform the trajectory of young children living in East Africa’s urban slums by providing high-quality, affordable, early childhood care and education through an innovative “hub and spoke” model.

Kidogo builds and operates best-practice community ECD “hubs,” which provide young children (6 months to 6 years) with a holistic ECD intervention including a safe & stimulating physical environment, nutritious meals, a play-based curriculum and well-trained, supportive caregivers. In addition, Kidogo partners with local baby-care centers (“spokes”) through a micro-franchising model, providing training, materials & ongoing support to improve the quality of community-based childcare.

Funders

• Grand Challenges Canada (Canada)
• OpenIDEO (USA)

Key Partners

• Mother Child in Action (Kenya)
• Aga Khan University, Institute for Human Development (Kenya)

Key Drivers

• Community participation and ownership through the establishment of local advisory councils.
• Incorporation of local best practice into curriculum and teacher-training.
• Engaged and motivated caregivers

Kidogo is founded on a sustainable, scalable business model. The goal of the program is to reach 50,000 young children within the first 10 years of operations.

The project team and researchers from the Institute for Human Development (Aga Khan University), intend to measure specific outcome indicators in children, including stunting rates (height/weight), disease prevalence (e.g. diarrhea), malnutrition, and motor & language skills.

Initial assessments will be conducted to estimate the cognitive, motor, psycho-social and emotional condition of each child using age-appropriate, culturally-sensitive instruments. Success of the intervention will be deemed by improvements in children’s developmental outcomes (based on baseline assessments), nutritional status and overall well-being. The intent in the long-run is to conduct follow-up studies on primary school completion rates and health status to validate Kidogo’s theory of change.

Kidogo will also evaluate the financial sustainability of its “hub and spoke” model. Each centre will have a thorough financial record-keeping system in place to keep track of incoming revenue and expenditures. In the proof-of-concept phase, monthly financial reports prepared by centre administrators will guide decisions and facilitate cost minimization. In the long-run, Kidogo will develop a mobile phone, SMS-based tracking system to increase reliability and accountability of financial tracking, as well as enable real-time data tracking.

1. Munthali, Alister C. et al. (2014) Early childhood development: the role of community based childcare centres in Malawi. Springerplus. 2014; 3: 305.