inspiration
From Whence We Came & Where We’re Going Founded in 2009, SLT’s ECD programme supports the physical, nutritional, developmental, health, and safety needs of children from birth to age five in the communities neighbouring Singita’s Sabi Sand and Kruger National Park concessions. As of 2026, the programme supports 27 ECD centres across 13 villages in the Greater Kruger Region, reaching just over 3,000 children each year. But this work isn’t only about what happens inside the ECD centre. It’s also about what happens around it. A Model of Shared Custodianship “We want to understand the spaces where we work so we can learn and make sure what we’re doing is actually impactful,” says Linky Nkuna, Singita’s Community Partnerships Programme Manager in the region. “When we started the programme, we wanted to help children but completely overlooked their parents.” If a child receives early development support for a few hours a day, but that support isn’t extended into the home or falls away after graduating from the programme, where does that leave them? For the practitioners working within these centres, parental engagement is therefore an important part of the picture.
“Parents value ECD Centres as a safe place where their children can learn, grow, and be cared for while they attend to daily responsibilities,” says Shirley Nkuna, an ECD trainer who supports practitioners through training, coaching, and mentorship. “One area the programme continues to strengthen is parent participation in centre activities and meetings, helping families become more active partners in their children’s early learning and development.” The challenge, then, isn’t simply to encourage parents to become more involved, but to shift the understanding of what an ECD centre is for: from somewhere children go to simply be cared for while their parents are busy, to a place where they learn, develop, and build foundations that can be strengthened at home. “We need parents to work with us,” says Linky — a realisation that’s beginning to shape how the programme thinks about its future. This means changing not only how parents participate, but where responsibility for early development is understood to sit. “It’s never just about the child.” “The biggest opportunity,” she says, “is to reconvene. Simple, basic workshops with parents, in practice. If we can get that right, automatically the ECD space will change. Then it will do what we believe it can do. We’re constantly piloting new initiatives and learning as we go.”
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