I was recently invited to the City of Kigali’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centre graduation party. Their 3-year-olds were dressed in mini-gowns and the rest of the class was wearing tiny colourful t-shirts that were very cute, cheering them on.

It was such a big party that their facilitators were wearing the traditional attire ‘Imishanana’. And while this may sound dramatic to the uninitiated, it was deserving of all the efforts. The little ones cut a cake, and they performed multiple plays, recited prayers and poems, and everything that they most probably wouldn’t have learned, had they not been part of the centre.

For starters, ECDs welcome children from zero to 3 years old, before sending them to nursery school. The goal of this is for the child to achieve social, physical, and emotional development. They also acquire language and cognitive skills. All this is done through music, painting, and games.

Research shows that a person’s brain is 80 percent developed before their third birthday and 90 percent before their fifth. This means that our brains are most flexible and adaptable to learning during the first years. This fact alone makes ECD graduations a big deal.

Another notable benefit is that toddlers with working parents can spend time in a safe place, where they will get properly fed and well-taken care of. In the Rwandan context, local ECDs charge little to no fees. Parents sometimes give contributions for school materials and feeding.

ECDs that are in the vicinity of parents’ workplaces, like markets, mining sites, and tea plantations, also benefit both mother and child. Mothers can take a few minutes off work to breastfeed, and fathers can also check in on their children.

Without such facilities, oftentimes the mother or their child miss out on important milestones. Sometimes the mother may focus on work to be able to provide for her family, and the child will be at risk of malnutrition or miss out on proper early childhood development. Other times, the mother will not go to work or will not be productive enough to make enough money to support her family, especially if she has no partner or if they are not supportive.

One can’t also ignore the fact that for every one hour a man spends on unpaid care work, a woman spends three. This means that ECDs play a crucial role in minimizing the burden of domestic chores that are expected of women, saving them time and energy for other paying work. Both mother and child win in this situation.

ECDs in the workplace

The City of Kigali’s ECD takes care of children whose parents work there. Unlike home-based ECDs where parents take care of children in their vicinity on a rotational basis, progressive workplaces have such facilities where their staff can bring their children.

Parents come to work with their children and leave together. It is a cute sight but also very important. Given how short parental leave is (14 weeks for mothers, one week for fathers), working mothers may have difficulty finding time to breastfeed their babies exclusively for 6 months. I mean, is it even possible at all?

Children with working mothers tend to be fed formula or cow milk, depending on the means, although breastfeeding is the natural, and healthiest way to feed a baby from birth. Despite the many known benefits of breastfeeding, only 44 percent of infants worldwide are breastfed exclusively for the first six months of their life. In Rwanda, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding is almost double the global average, but it has fallen sharply in recent years.

Africa Quantitative Sciences in their report show that exclusive breastfeeding in Rwanda fell from 87 per cent in 2015 to 81 per cent in 2020.

Breastfeeding has many benefits for both babies and mothers. For babies, it can reduce the risk of asthma, obesity, gastrointestinal infections, ear infections, severe lower respiratory disease, type 1 diabetes, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). For mothers, it can lower the risk of ovarian cancer, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, and breast cancer.

With ECDs in the workplace, mothers don’t have to give up breastfeeding at all. Their productivity is not affected. If anything, they perform better, according to stories told by companies that have implemented this policy.

If we wanted, as a society, every child in the country would benefit from ECD centres. Whether home-based, workplace ECD, or even just an ECD. As parents, employers, policy makers, politicians, or even just bystanders, it is important to play a role in ensuring that no child is left behind.

There is no loss in investing in our children. There is simply no future without them, and we have to shape them into the people who fit the kind of country we envision. They should literally be "abantu babereye u Rwanda twifuza”. Is there anything more worthy of investing in?