Work for IRD
Contact us
Overview
Kuyakhanya is a holistic Early Childhood Development (ECD) initiative transforming rural South Africa’s learning and caregiving ecosystems. Through a hub-and-spoke model, the program delivers integrated early learning opportunities, nutrition supplementation, mental health support, and workforce capacity building. Playhouses (hubs) act as integrated centers of excellence, while Community Play Facilitator (CPF) sites (spokes) extend access to children, caregivers, and the broader community in underserved locales. By combining play-based learning and fortified porridge for children with mental health interventions and capacity building for caregivers and ECD practitioners, Kuyakhanya fosters a resilient, thriving ecosystem of care for South Africa’s youngest learners. Kuyakhanya operates in rural districts in South Africa, beginning with KZN’s Ugu district, with plans to expand to four more districts in KZN in the next year and up to four provinces by 2029. Expansion will strategically target underserved, rural communities, leveraging local early learning practitioners, multi-purpose community spaces, and governmental and stakeholder engagement to scale sustainably.
1,545
community members engaged through outreach
1,331
adults screened for anxiety and depression
629
children enrolled across playhouses and CPF sites
29%
of screened adults were symptomatic
Our Partners
- IRD Global and Affiliate(s): Provides programmatic management, monitoring, procurement, and partnership support, and leads the development and deployment of integrated systems for early learning, mental health, community engagement, and monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL).
- Training and Resources in Early Education (TREE): Delivers capacity building, mentoring, and resourcing for early learning practitioners to ensure quality and sustainability.
- goGOGOgo (GGG): Conducts community engagement activities, working closely with early learning practitioners.
- J-PAL Africa: Supports the design of MEL systems, frameworks, and tools, as well as analysis of findings.
- Government: The Department of Education (DoE), Department of Health (DoH), and Department of Social Development (DSD) support the multi-sectoral, integrated deployment of this programme.
The Need
The Need
Limited Access to Quality Services
60% of early learning centres are in urban settings, leaving a dearth of dedicated, quality ECD services in rural and peri-urban South Africa. This impacts almost 6 million children under 5 (approximately 10% of South Africa’s population).
Developmental Milestones Impacted
Only 42% of children enrolled in early learning programmes in South Africa are developmentally “On Track”, and among non-enrolled children, there are severe developmental deficits, with a massive 82% “Falling Behind” or “Falling Far Behind”.
Caregiver Ability for Care
Vulnerable households, including many grandparent-led families, face compounded challenges of poverty, maternal mental health challenges, and high disease comorbidities, such as HIV, TB, substance use and others.
Our Approach: Delivery
In-line with South Africa’s 2030 ECD, there is a need to enhance access to and quality of early learning services, particularly in rural settings, complemented by improving caregiver capacity and wellbeing. Without early intervention, these inequities affect cognitive, physiological, and socio-emotional development, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage for South Africa’s youngest populations.
The Kuyakhanya programme deploys a hub-and-spoke model to deliver integrated systems to enhance care for children under-five. Existing early learning centers are refurbished to serve as Playhouses – integrated spaces offering play-based sessions and fortified porridge for children under five, mental health screening and counselling for caregivers, practitioners, and the wider locality, as well as acting as a community centre for the area. Playhouses also serve as administrative hubs for the program to extend services to neighbouring areas. Within a 50 km radius of the Playhouses, center-based and non-center-based playgroups run by early learning practitioners are supported through capacity building, mentorship, and resources to improve the quality of ECD services. These Community Play Facilitation (CPF) sites also benefit from integrated offerings for mental health, community engagement, and more supplemented through the nearby Playhouses.
Early learning practitioners are capacitated, mentored, and provided with resources to enhance the quality of early learning services. The programme delivers these services in the form of play-based, structured curricula for children aged two to five years, as well as Baby-and-Me sessions for children under the age of two accompanied by their caregiver(s). Children enrolled in the programme are tracked through a digital registry to monitor developmental milestones’ achievement, and all children engaged in the programme are provided with fortified porridge to supplement their nutrition needs.
Caregivers, early learning practitioners, and the wider community are screened for depression, anxiety, and substance use by trained Lay Mental Health Counsellors. Those symptomatic and wanting to avail services are provided structured counselling sessions or referrals to specialized care where needed. This enables caregiver wellbeing to enhance the ecosystem of care to which children belong. The program is designed and deployed with extensive community consultation and co-creation to foster local ownership and sustainability.
Kuyakhanya’s integrated model ensures children benefit from playful learning opportunities, nutrition supplementation, and emotional support at home, in early learning centres, and within their communal settings.
Our partners
The Drivers Behind Our Impact
The Drivers Behind Our Impact
Integrated service delivery
Combining early learning, nutrition supplementation, and mental health support for holistic early childhood development in-line with the Nurturing Care Framework
Participatory community engagement
Rightsholders and stakeholders are actively consulted and participate in co-creation of program design, deployment, and dissemination
Capacity building
Strengthening early learning practitioner through skills-based trainings and active coaching and mentoring through ECD-experts in the field
Evidence-informed approach
Regular programmatic and operational monitoring to improve quality and accountability, and development of a rigorous evaluation plan to gauge effectiveness
Scalable, replicable model
Hub-and-spoke design enabling expansion to underserved regions by embedding relevant services in existing community spaces