Mikhulu Trust works with different types of partners to implement the programmes that we design and test. We call these “Implementing partners”. The community-based workers who are trained by us are typically employed by these implementing partners, who are typically either community-based NPOs, early childhood development and literacy focused NPOs or government service providers who work directly with parents and caregivers of young children.
Community-based NPO partners
As an early childhood development organisation, Mikhulu Trust does not only partner with other CBOs working in ECD, but we are open to working with ANY organisations who serve parents and families of young children. Indeed, the partners we currently work with have a variety of primary focus areas, including health and nutrition, skills development, literacy development, trauma counselling and many more. What these partners do have in common, though, is that they all work directly with parents and caregivers of young children, and they see our work as being able to be an additional benefit to those families.
The programmes offered by our CBO partners to families include “Book-sharing for Families” and “Book-sharing for Fathers”.
Early Childhood Development and Literacy Development NPO partners
Mikhulu Trust works closely with NPOs who support ECD centres or who are focused on tackling South Africa’s literacy crisis. Since our focus is reaching parents, we help ECD centres and Literacy implementers develop approaches and programmes for getting parents involved in their children’s early literacy development.
Government partners
Mikhulu Trust also works with government partners who serve parents and families of young children.
Our anchor partner is the Western Cape Department of Health, with whom we have worked over the past 4 years. Through our partnership, we are providing training and mentorship to hundreds of community-health workers (CHWs) to deliver early stimulation support and book-sharing to mothers who have given birth to babies in the past two years (i.e. mothers in the “First Thousand Days”).
We are also providing training and mentorship to librarians in libraries across the Western Cape to deliver a more intensive book-sharing programme to FTD mothers referred to them by CHWs, or any other parents or caregivers interested in joining the book-sharing training.
Celebrating Partners
Our Celebrating Partners Series aims to recognise and highlight the work that is done by our implementing partners. We look at how book-sharing has benefited them as an organisation and their beneficiaries.
