“Ukuba isiseko sendlu sibuthathaka iyakudilika,” says Ubuntu teacher Veliswa Jontana.

“If the foundation of a house is not strong, there will be some cracks.”

Jacob Lief, Ubuntu President and Founder, was selected to participate in “Starting Off Right: Early Childhood Education,” a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Action Network, which met recently at the CGI Annual Meeting. CGI is former President Clinton’s global partnership for change. Jacob moderated a panel meeting focusing on the proven importance of early childhood education. Jacob was asked to moderate in recognition of Ubuntu’s model as a best practice in community development. The newest piece in the model is the Ubuntu’s fledgling early childhood development (ECD) program.

The panel also included Marta Arango (Co-Founder and Director, International Center for Education and Human Development), Gary Knell (President and CEO, Sesame Workshop), Carolyn Miles (President and CEO, Save the Children), and George Rupp (President and CEO, International Rescue Committee).

The panel was focused on the essential nature of ECD programs. ECD has been proven to be of critical importance to children in poor communities. In a recent article, published in the Lancet, a "simulated model" was developed to calculate the long-term economic effects of increasing preschool enrollment to 25% or 50% in every low-income and middle-income country. The benefit-to-cost for increasing enrollment to 25% was 12.6 (which was calculated to be worth $10.6 billion) and rose to 17.6 for an increase to 50% enrollment (which would be worth more than $33.7 billion). What it means is that for every dollar invested in enrolling 50% of the children in preschool education nets returns of $17.60 over their lifetimes.

The article goes on to say, “By investing in early child development programs, we have the opportunity to break the cycle of inequities that has dominated the lives of millions of children and families in low-income and middle-income countries.”

These findings support Ubuntu’s approach. Our ECD program will be a crucial foundation for our already successful model.

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