Early Childhood         Resource Center

The Early Childhood Resource Centre "ECRC", is a Palestinian non-governmental organization in Jerusalem. It is a leading initiative dedicated to address the needs of the Palestinian community in the field of early childhood education care and development.

To upgrade, promote and develop the early childhood sector in Palestine. ECRC is guided by the comprehensive integrated developmental approach with the conviction that the development of the child's cognitive, physical and psychosocial processes will eventually lead to the development of a well integrated Palestinian child.

• Adopting the holistic integrated developmental approach to early childhood education, care, and development, based on culture-specific patterns of socialization.
• Focusing on human resource development of early childhood education and care service-providers and the capacity building of ECED institutions.
• Targeting communities and institutions at the grassroots level, with focus on the needy and the marginalized, in developing sound early childhood education and development approaches.
• Carrying out culture-specific research in child psychology, and relevant early childhood education and development programmes.
• Enriching the field of early childhood education and development through the supply of materials, publications, designs, and other relevant resources.
• Co-ordinating and co-operating with formal and informal institutions related to ECED.
• Raising the awareness of the community at large, and parents in particular, to the importance of ECED and Children's Rights, through the media and other means.

i. In-Service Training Program
This unit aims at professional training and upgrading of the staff of ECED service providers. This unit emphasizes, furthermore, the process of learning and interacting with children through active learning, participation and learning through play, as alternatives to the existing verbal orientation.
The In-Service Training targets around 120 teachers and care-givers annually, from all the areas in the West Bank. Training workshops are held annually in each of the five training units; namely, Nablus, Jenin, Al-Khalil, Jerusalem and Ramallah. The duration of the training programme is ten months; it includes basics of child development and how to meet the developmental tasks in the KG and at home, in harmony with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
A very special feature of the In-service Training is its innovative, individualized and hands on experience in the teachers work place. For this purpose, ECRC identifies 2-3 kindergartens and day care centres in each geographical area to be used as practice teaching sites.

ii. The Community Outreach Program
This unit aims at creating community awareness to the importance of ECECD, Children's Rights, and how best to protect them through:

• advocacy and lobbying with political decision-makers;
• advocacy and lobbying with the non-formal institutions;
• utilizing a variety of techniques to extend ECRC mission statement to the community at large such as:

- Teacher to teacher - Short refresher courses - Parent to Parent - Short specialized courses - Child to Child - Training on the rights of the child

- Parent Education

iii. The Children's Rights Program
This unit aims at :

• creating awareness through lobbying, advocacy and training on children's Rights in general and Palestinian children's Rights in particular, based on the UN (CRC) Children's Rights Convention.
• networking with GOs and NGOs, locally, regionally and internationally to promote the rights of the child.

iv. The Day Care Centres
Two day care centers are run by ECRC in the central region to serve working mothers in a developmentally appropriate framework setting.

The aim of this unit is to enrich the field of ECED with culturally appropriate, and supportive materials and programmes. This includes :
i. The Library Unit :

• a specialized library for early childhood education care and development;
• children's corner;
• audiovisual materials .

ii. The Production of:

• written materials for teachers caregivers and parents ;
• appropriate materials for children; such as stories, activity sheets, booklets, and cassettes, etc.;
• samples of low cost audio-visual materials.

iii. The Sales Unit:
Aims at promotion and distribution of educational material produced by ECRC.

This unit aims at enriching the field of early childhood education and development with the results of relevant research within the specific Palestinian situation. The unit carries out action research to supplement ECRC programmes and experiments in alternatives to address the local needs in ECED.