By Famara Fofana
ChildFund The Gambia with funding from Dubai Cares through UNICEF has been orientating some 1200 young parents from 30 communities on responsive and inclusive parenting practices for early childhood development.
The two-day training which was held concurrently in NBR, LRR and CRR comes ahead of the commencement of monthly community and home-based parenting sessions geared towards the holistic development of the child, especially from 0 to 5 years.
The 18-month intervention dubbed Parenting Practices for Early Childhood Development will be rolled out by community-based facilitators with support from a group of mentors drawn from the departments of community development, education, agriculture among others.
The responsive parenting education programme is making use of a manual that has previously been used by ChildFund International in Kenya and contextualized for The Gambia covers a wide range of thematic areas such as safe pregnancy and delivery, play and communication, toxic stress, nutrition.
Communities that are part of the programme are already alluding to the importance of this training and parenting programme in general , describing it as not only an investment in the future of their children but their growth and development.
