Our Vision

All parents are supported to develop positive, nurturing and stimulating relationships with their young children

The Mikhulu Child Development Trust promotes parents as being their young children’s first and best teachers. Through our work, we are contributing to the development of a systemic approach where support for parents is part of a holistic ECD ecosystem, and they are supported to do the best for their young children.

Mikhulu Trust bridges the gap between academic research on parenting and families, and the networks that support them. We are at the forefront of promoting evidence-based early childhood development in South Africa; and in particular, advancing an innovative programme called ‘dialogic Book-sharing’.

Our Mission

We aim to build an ecosystem of support for parents that enables them to develop positive and stimulating relationships with their young children by

  1. Developing, testing and researching supportive interventions that serve parents’ ECD and other needs,
  2. Building capacity with government and other social services
  3. Producing quality resources

​Relationships that are nourishing help nurture resilient and curious children who have a lower risk of developing violent behaviours. Any caregiver – regardless of their formal education – can provide this support when given the right tools. We work with organisations and government to integrate our programmes into the services they offer families, and promote further research into book-sharing interventions.

We are a registered Non-Profit Company (2017/464907/08) and Public Benefit Organisation (930060969) in South Africa and we are a registered charity in the United Kingdom (Mikhulu Trust – UK Charity No. 1158733).

Watch a short video about us here