Every neighbourhood deserves a 5 Star Early Childhood Development Centre

We use a proven recipe for success to equip local women to run high quality ECD centres that are also financially sustainable businesses.

5 Star early learning can lift entire communities out of poverty.

Quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) education is globally recognised as the most impactful investment in human capital that a country can make. Research shows return on investment of between 7% and 13% when investing in early learning. In South Africa about 1.6 million children (72%) under 6 years old are enrolled to attend an Early Learning Programme meant to prepare them for school.

Poor quality early learning is a life sentence to poverty and inequality.

In developing countries, low-quality early learning can be a life sentence that perpetuates poverty and inequality. Children who don’t have access to high quality early learning are being left behind. Nationally in South Africa, only 45% of children under 5 are on track to meet their developmental milestones. Children from low-income households are at the greatest risk due to lack of access to quality early learning opportunities. This has severe long-term implications for their education, employment and income prospects.

Professional educare like you’ve never seen before

The truth is that many ECD (Early Childhood Development) Centres in disadvantaged South African communities are simply not sufficiently equipped, well-trained, adequately resourced, professionally managed or supported to ensure that the children in their care are ready for school and life. Managing an ECD centre is a complex business, which is why we have developed a complete recipe for success that ensures quality learning outcomes for children , as well as develops and supports women to run their ECD centre professionally and sustainably.

We believe that:

Excellent preschool education should be accessible and affordable in every neighbourhood.
Qualified teachers and centre owners should be paid fairly.
ECD owners need more than just donations. They need strong, capable partners to guide and support them on their journey towards running a 5 Star ECD centre.

One teacher can grow a generation of learners!
Let's empower women to run excellent educare centres

Our recipe for ECD success

Like you, we care deeply about ensuring that children from developing communities receive 5 Star education in their most crucial years. We also understand that the only way quality can be maintained is if centres are financially sustainable and teachers are paid what they’re worth. That’s why our recipe for success includes education AND business sustainability components.

5 Steps to 5-Star journey

Our unique and proven model is available in a step-by-step programme.

We understand that developing a professional, high quality preschool takes time! But it’s worth it. We’ve developed a 5-step programme to help ECD centres at their own pace and capacity while also expanding our programme to reach more centres, across the country (we call it 5 Steps to 5-Star).

Empower Educare Centres

Leave a legacy when you make a donation, adopt an ECD, volunteer your time and more.

Give your child a head start

Enrol your child at a
GROW Educare centre

45 centres running and 89 classrooms

Learner capacity 2136

44% of centres registered

Jobs supported 180

30 teacher interns

What I like about the GROW program is that it teaches you how to be independent, how to fully be in control of your business! It teaches you how to put your business in your own hands. Before we had so many papers! But now each teacher has their own app as well, they can just edit if there's a mistake, and everything is so neat, and it's so organized, and everyone is just happy! My advice to other ECD Owners is to give it a try. With this app, if you use it, it's like a computer. It's all in your phone, now it's all in your hands.

I was very interested I the GROW Programme because we need assistance with the financial health of our small business, and guidance on how to make my ECD better. Now, with the Apps, everything is at my fingertips so I don't have to look for books or look for information or go to the office. Everything is there for me. We need to change with the times – we need to get more modern. This app - it easy, it's convenient, and it's cheap! It's free. My advice to other ECD Owners who are not sure if this app will help them is that they must come to a meeting and ask questions. It's free of charge and it's so so easy to use.

For me, the GROW curriculum is the best thing that has happened to my school in all the years I've been running. Before we got the GROW curriculum and classroom kit, learning and teaching were very challenging. We had very little resources to support our day to day activities and learning. Now with the GROW curriculum and learning materials our teachers are more confident in what they are doing, and our learners are having so much fun discovering and learning.And there is definitely a big improvement in how we teach our learners daily.

As a foundation with a mandate to support social enterprises that build sustainable businesses and job creation and where possible, solve a social need, we often struggle to source black-owned businesses that meet this mandate. GROW Educare gave us the opportunity to help women to be self-employed and provide quality ECD centres where the children no longer have to travel outside of their communities for their education. The educare centres also create employment for people living in those communities. If you’re looking at supporting an initiative that offers quality ECD education and ongoing support to early learning centres, consider GROW Educare Centres!

GROW delivered on exactly what they had promised – and more. My centre was revamped, high quality and relevant learning equipment and the materials were delivered. I was filled with hope! The GROW team did not stop there. They assisted me and my teachers with training workshops, business and education mentoring, school visits and coaching, financial guidance, a great day-by-day education programme and so much more. They made sure that my centre as a whole was of exceptional quality.