Five-year-old Ali* proudly holds up a cardboard cutout of the letter 'Z' crafted from locally available materials at his home in the Afar region, Ethiopia.
The play-based learning material was created by his mother, Hayat*, through the Emergent Literacy and Math (ELM) at Home initiative under the Childhood Development Activity (CDA). Funded by the LEGO Foundation and led technically by Save the Children, the initiative works alongside local partners APDA and AISDA to empower pastoralist families to support early childhood education directly from their homes.
Thanks to regular teacher home visits and parental sessions, Ali* has shown immense growth in both skills and confidence. "Since this program started, there has been a lot of change in Ali*," shares Hayat*. "At home, we show him different things like letters and colors through play, and his understanding and identification of letters has now improved." Now fully motivated, Ali* is thriving in his pre-primary O-Class and looks forward to achieving his big dream: “In the future, I want to be a doctor and help patients. Anteneh Teshome / Save the Children