Published on February 6, 2025 by Kariuki Mwangi
Last Updated on 1 year by Kariuki Mwangi
Thursday, 6th February 2025: Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has today launched the Nairobi Early Childhood Development Programme.
The program, set out in line with the governor’s vision of making Nairobi a city of order, dignity, hope, and opportunity to all is aimed at ensuring children in Nairobi develop to their optimal potential.
During the event, the governor emphasized the Nairobi City County Government’s commitment to delivering an integrated, multi-sectoral Early Childhood Development Programme (ECD) that leverages on existing systems to deliver strategic interventions.
The transformative goal of the Nairobi ECD Programme is to ensure that 95% of children under six years are developmentally on track in health, learning, and social-emotional well-being by 2030.
The key objectives of the programme are; to promote the provision of quality, stimulating, and nurturing childrencare services for all children under 3 years within health centres, communities and households, to provide opportunities for early learning through equitable access to quality and intergrated play-based learning for 3-6 year old children in pre-school, to improve children’s adequate nutrition, school enrollment, retention and performance through school feeding programme (Dishi na County), to create opportunities for outdoor play in communal spaces to impact children’s physical, cognitive, and social-emotional wellbeing, and to create awareness and support for the provision of nurturing care among parents and caregivers through social behavioural change communication.
Speaking during the launch, Governor Sakaja reassured his commitment to making Nairobi a city of opportunities to all.
“It’s a pleasure to gather here for this noble and great course. Nairobi loves its children. I am very passionate about children welfare. Early childhood development is a good equaliser, and it offers every child an opportunity to achieve their dreams. No child will be left behind. We have to invest in our children for a greater future. We are committed to bringing up healthy and well developed children. I am championing for this, and Nairobi will be an example of how to take care of children. It’s a paradigm shift on how we look at our children and their future.” Governor Sakaja said.
The governor also revealed the plans to make this programme a success.
“We will train our 7820 Community Health Promoters (CHPs) to deliver parental coaching on nurturing care. 800 public health workers will also be trained to facilitate mainstreaming of the teaching of nurturing care practices in all 122 health centres. Another 10,000 childcare providers will be trained to provide and stimulate and nurture childcare services. To create communal spaces to impact physical, cognitive, and social-emotional wellbeing, we will construct 3 playgrounds in every ward,” Sakaja added.
Governor Sakaja also revealed plans to expand Dishi na County Programme, “To solve malnutrition problems in our schools, we will scale up Dishi na County to informal schools as we increase capacity in our public schools. This programme has full support from my government.
The governor also thanked all the stakeholders in the programme, including The Agakhan Foundation and Big Win Philanthropy.
