Cause Index

Tree

Organizational Profile of TREE

Since formation in 1984, TREE (Training & Resources in Early Education) has worked towards a vision of assisting adults (mostly women) from disadvantaged communities provide their young children with access to quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) Programmes, that promote the child’s holistic development, support, health & welfare.

TREE is today recognized as the largest Early Childhood Development Resource & Training Provider in KwaZulu-Natal. TREE’s head office is located in Briardene, Durban and has sub offices in Port Shepstone, Pietermaritzburg & Ladysmith. TREE has played a major role in creating an awareness of ECD amongst disadvantaged communities as well as lobbying for the provision of greater resources towards ECD from the state and private sector. TREE believes that all children should have access to quality, sustainable early childhood development so that they can develop to their full education and personal potential. TREE’s vision is to see a nation that values and affirms young children and gives them opportunities to develop to their full potential, in line with their developmental rights and needs.

TREE’s mission is to promote and support quality holistic Early Childhood Development for children from birth to seven in disadvantaged communities by:
• Providing access to quality training in ECD
• Providing access to a range of exciting low cost ECD Resources
• Establishing partnerships with communities, government, and non-governmental organizations to access resources to improve the conditions in which our young children can develop.

TREE trains approximately 3000 women annually to implement quality early childhood development programmes for the young children in their communities, throughout KwaZulu-Natal and adjacent Eastern Cape. The training provided by TREE improves the educational potential of approximately 80 000 young children annually. Many of these young children are from remote and impoverish rural areas. TREE has trained in excess of 23 000 people, mostly women, since inception in 1984, with an estimated impact on 700 000 young children. TREE’s, direct beneficiaries are all black South African women from previously disadvantaged communities, whilst the indirect beneficiaries are all young black children within the same communities. TREE training also impacts on women’s education, women’s empowerment and community development, in addition to its impact in the field of Early Childhood Development as we have initiated holistic ECD Cluster programmes for communities to improve the quality and sustainability of the ECD Site in their geographical area. These programmes targets the ECD Practitioners, principals, parents committees and community, as well as ensuring that ECD sites have suitable educational toys and equipment to run stimulating educational programmes for their children.

TREE has accreditation from The Education and Training Development Product (ETDP) SETA and provides various levels of up to date curriculum, materials and training to educate teachers (practitioners) as well as providing on-site support and monitoring, access to low cost resources and educational equipment. TREE has been granted provisional Registration as a Private Education and Collage which will be valid until 2016. We are now able to offer full qualifications in ECD (Early Childhood Development) up to and including NQF (National Qualification Framework ) level 4. This is yet further evidence of the professionalism of ECD, ensuring students get recognized and portable qualifications.

TREE’s Educational Toy Shop plays an important role in self generated income for TREE’s sustainability. It is full of good quality, culturally appropriate, low cost educational toys and equipment, as well as printed resource books for teachers and parents. Small wooden puzzles are cognitive games are made onsite by our carpentry team, while we source soft toys from the Association for the Physically Disabled. As members of Proudly South Africa, these stickers are now displayed on all our products. In addition, we intend to produce on line marketing through our website. Toy kits have been sponsored by funding partners for our holistic cluster ECD programmes, as well as other projects. In addition they have been included in the Department of Education tenders, as well as Ethekwini Municipality toy kits for ECD sites in the Greater Durban area. Proceeds from the TREE Toy Shop are ploughed back into TREE to sponsor practitioner training to improve the quality of ECD programmes for young children in communities.

TREE also supplies outdoor Jungle Gym equipment and has over 10 Years of experience in completing these installations. In 2009 we were awarded a tender by the Kwa-Zulu Natal Department of Education to supply and install 539 Jungle Gym’s throughout the Kwa-Zulu Natal region, which was completed successfully by 2010.

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