Aspire is a women cooperative founded by Peace Ruzage in 2007 and supported by Network 4 Africa. It offers a 12-month training programme, teaching between 50 and 75 vulnerable women a year how to read and write, as well as basic English, nutrition and cookery, and a vocational skill.  When they have completed the training, the women become members of income generating co-operatives, where they produce and sell necklaces, greetings cards, vegetables, eggs, goats and chickens. Women enrolled at Aspire bring their babies who are still breast-feeding with them.  Problems arise when older toddlers are present, distracting their mothers from learning and working. There is the need for a nursery where children can be properly looked after while their mothers are working.

Network 4 Africa is raising funds to build a nursery on Aspire grounds. The nursery will cost £4 per week per child and it will offer:

·     They will be given an early step up in life by being part of a pre-school educational programme: language and literacy; social and emotional learning; numeracy and problem solving; creativity including music and art; nature and the environment, including growing cultivating a small kitchen garden; sport and physical games.  

·       They will have two nutritious meals a day.

·        Their mothers will be able to study and work uninterrupted, learning the skills and earning the funds to feed and educate their children, thus breaking the cycle of poverty.

·       Older sisters will be able to go to school, rather than looking after their younger siblings.

·       Some mothers will be trained as support workers, learning valuable parenting skills in addition to ensuring continuity and sustainability for the nursery.

 

Help Netwrok 4 Africa give children a safe enviroment where they can learn and they can have a chance in then attending primary school.