Although Crèche or Day care centres have over the years grown in popularity, the main hurdle seems to be picking the right one. Children are usually placed in such centres because both parents would be working and this can happen when the children are as young as six months.
However, sometimes parents are advised by professionals to enroll their children in child care because such an environment will promote the child’s development. But more often than not, parents struggle to find good nannies resulting in them turning to a cr├¿che centre as some form of rescue. Pearl Kgosiemang, a teacher by profession with a lot of both local and international experience is one woman who provides such care and does it with so much passion. Her cr├¿che is called Jouerhall Day Care Centre.
“Jouer is French for play but apart from that we also take in older school children to help them with homework while their parents are at work,” said Kgosiemang. She insists that if a cr├¿che is run it must be done right. “Child care is very important in communities as it affects community development goals and activities including smart growth and sustainability planning initiatives. I believe proper child care results in more family friendly neighbourhoods,” said Kgosiemang. She said Children benefit a lot from proper planned child care as it offers a formal structured environment. “The environment is more stable compared to, perhaps, a nanny, because a child is cared by trained, experienced and passionate personnel who comparatively stick around much longer. Children develop early through interaction and play and they have access to a variety of suitable toys which helps in their development,” she continued.
Kgosiemang said her daily program is packed with activities to keep children engaged throughout the day. “Besides one on one homework supervision with the older children, we also relieve parents by washing and ironing children’s school uniforms. At meal time we emphasise table manners by teaching children table cover, how it works and general table manners,” she said. Kgosiemang said she is satisfied that their daily program is good enough to prepare the children for the rest of their schooling years to come. “We do sign language on Mondays, cooking lessons on Tuesdays, practical skills on Wednesdays, crazy lab on Thursdays which is mainly fun science where we introduce science to kids and have them do experiments with none toxic kitchen ingredients just to appreciate science and science related subjects. Friday is ‘jouer’ day that is play day!” she exclaimed. Kgosiemang said for the little ones who are not yet school going age, they offer an additional program apart from professional babysitting to ensure that babies do not skip any stage of development. “These include language development, communication skills, potty training and refine motto skills. We do not do any academics with them but we focus on other aspects of education like psychomotor and affective domains to prepare them for preschool,” she said. Kgosiemang said her holiday program favours parents who wish to instill the principle of independence on their children, during which time they can Skype with them.
Like any other business which is still at the stage of inception, Kgosiemang has had her fair share of challenges but did not allow any to deter her. “Well, the biggest challenge was funding. I used my savings and pension to start the business which was still not enough, but passion and patience kept me going. I love what I do and will not let it die. I work hard day and night to make the facility a success. We will have a preschool class next year so that children can just proceed here if the parents wish,” she promised. She said people used to be skeptical of her concept but these days there is a lot of buy in which she is grateful for.
