Executive Summary

Project Host:

Fellows:

Andrew Armstrong, Social Entrepreneur Fellow
Clint Bartlett, Social Entrepreneur Fellow
Laura Outhwaite, Research Fellow
Sho Tsuji, Research Fellow
Alejandro Villanueva, Team Lead, Social Entrepreneur Fellow

Introduction

In recent years, the Early Childhood Development (ECD) agenda has garnered significant attention from governments, civil society and business. The recognition comes from a realisation that to thrive later in life, the right foundations are essential and not optional. In South Africa, poverty, unemployment and the rural-urban divide continue to be significant barriers to accessing basic services including ECD. It has become apparent that different modalities are required to respond to the needs of families with different socio-economic circumstances. As such, Seriti’s aRe Bapaleng programme has, for five years, provided basic capacity-building to parents and caregivers of children aged 0-8 years with the intention to empower them to assume the role of the first teacher — providing home-based early learning and stimulation using minimal and inexpensive resources. Through aRe Bapaleng’s Active Learning Workshop methodology, cohorts of parents and caregivers are trained on six sessions which provide relatable information of various aspects of child development including health and nutrition, stages of development, the importance of learning through play and psychosocial support, among other topics. To complement this information, parents and caregivers are also provided with an activity book, a set of Lego Six Bricks, flashcards, and story books to demonstrate the types of learning activities they can implement with their children. Additionally, the programme has implemented other interventions including home-based visits and awareness campaigns to strengthen the support provided to families and communities.

To date, aRe Bapaleng has reached 52, 665 parents and caregivers through its interventions and has indirectly benefited 102, 534 children.

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Organisation’s role & strength

Seriti Institute, established in 2009, is a non-profit and public benefit organisation focused on building resilient communities through innovative and sustainable solutions. Working collaboratively with social partners, Seriti delivers technical support, programme management, and implementation services to help vulnerable people achieve self-sufficiency and create meaningful lives.

Seriti's aRe Bapaleng programme demonstrates a unique value proposition in the South African ECD space through its holistic, community-centred approach, emphasising the importance of home-based nurturing care and household resilience in advancing educational outcomes for children aged 0-8. The programme empowers and equips parents and caregivers with essential skills while building sustainable local ECD ecosystems through active learning workshops, caregiver networks, and strategic partnerships that foster nurturing environments for children's development.

Over the past five years of successful implementation, and three Partner Networking Events aimed at building linkages within the South African early learning and development ecosystem, Standard Bank South Africa remained a steadfast pillar of support. Seriti’s aRe Bapeleng programme has advanced significantly and made it through to the 2024 LEAP Challenge supported by MIT and the Jacobs Foundation. Seriti’s aRe Bapeleng programme demonstrated global relevance, becoming one of ten global finalists to participate in the LEAPathon. Through LEAP, Seriti has been able to strengthen the aRe Bapaleng programme’s Theory of Change, Intervention Design, Data Collection Strategy, and strategic thinking around fundraising in the South African ECD, parental support and household resilience landscape. The LEAP challenge has provided access to research and social enterprise thought leadership at a global level, embodying a strength for continuous learning for future program iterations. As Seriti enters 2025, aRe Bapaleng is well-placed to innovate and attract enduring forms of support for this important intervention in the lives of parents, caregivers and children.

Need summary

The Seriti Institute shared several needs and areas for exploration related to their aRe Bapaleng early childhood development programme:

A review of their Theory of Change involving key indicators, their multiple interventions, and their interconnections (Deliverable 1)
A set of recommendations to strengthen their intervention design based on a literature review (Deliverable 2)
A proposed approach to their data collection strategy aiming to enhance their monitoring, evaluation, and learning processes (Deliverable 3)
Key recommendations for their fundraising strategy connected to the reflections of the overall project (Deliverable 4) Key recommendations for their fundraising strategy, based on insights from the mapping and landscaping of ECD organizations, emphasize the importance of diversifying funding sources, mitigating donor cannibalization, and positioning aRe Bapaleng’s unique household-focused interventions as a key driver for long-term impact and sustainability.

Solution summary & next steps

The Seriti Institute’s engagement with the LEAP initiative has resulted in actionable insights across four key deliverables, aiming to enhance the aRe Bapaleng programme’s impact and sustainability:

A refined Theory of Change now sharpens the focus on core interventions and parent and caregiver outcomes while ensuring adaptability and clarity in programmatic objectives.
Evidence-based recommendations on strengthening the aRe Bapaleng intervention design highlight the potential value of combining group workshops and home visits, optimizing intervention dose, and emphasizing the role of skilled providers and father involvement.
A proposed data collection strategy outlines insights and considerations for incorporating a Likert-scale approach and emphasizing parental self-efficacy as a primary outcome measure, while also introducing the potential for child outcome tracking using validated tools.
Lastly, an analysis of Seriti’s fundraising strategy and positioning in relation to other similar interventions based on insights from the mapping and landscaping of ECD organizations, emphasizes the importance of diversifying funding sources, mitigating donor cannibalization, and positioning aRe Bapaleng’s unique household-focused interventions as a key driver for long-term impact and sustainability.

Moving forward, the Seriti Team may consider several next steps, guided by their organizational priorities, funding, capacity, and strategic goals. These include:

Piloting and institutionalising the refined Theory of Change and intervention designs and developing a set of accompanying key indicators
Incorporating revised data collection tools to measure parental self-efficacy and child outcomes
Exploring opportunities to scale program components through strategic partnerships, aligning their narrative to funder interests, and showcasing the long-term societal benefits of their work to ensure sustainability and resilience in their impactful ECD interventions.