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Ibrahim Youssief Kindergarten, Kom Ombo, Egypt.

AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer

Nursery-age children sit on a carpet, with some raising their hands to answer a question.

Early childhood development centre, Kom Ombo, Egypt.

AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer

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Early Childhood Development centre in West Aswan, Egypt.

AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer

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Ibrahim Youssief Kindergarten, Kom Ombo, Egypt.

AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer

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Egypt | Early Childhood Development

The Aga Khan Foundation's Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme started in Egypt in 2005 through the Om Habibeh Foundation, with the Aswan governorate, in the south of the country. The Om Habibeh Foundation is an Egyptian, not-for-profit organisation of long standing established by the Aga Khan’s late step-grandmother, the Begum Sultan Mahomed Shah.


8,000

Over 8,000 children have benefited from the Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme

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Aga Khan Foundation

AKDN’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) Programme in Egypt has improved the accessibility rate to safe pre-schools in Aswan from 22% in 2005 to 56% in 2015. AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer
AKDN’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) Programme in Egypt has improved the accessibility rate to safe pre-schools in Aswan from 22% in 2005 to 56% in 2015.

AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer

The ECD programme aimed to improve the quality of existing early childhood development facilities and services in rural and urban unprivileged communities. It encouraged the establishment of new local ECD units, initiatives and service providers; and facilitated accessible and affordable early childhood development support for parents and children.


It promoted a culture of reading and storytelling by distributing screens, projectors and e-readers to ECD centres and community preschools. This enabled them to use the WorldReader library, which includes Arabic storybooks for children.


Building on AKDN’s global experience in ECD, which has proved the importance of education at the early stages of childhood, the programme focused on four areas:



  1. on-the job training and capacity building for local ECD teachers and local governmental ECD education supervisors;

  2. facility improvement and upgrading of physical space of existing preschools;

  3. providing health assessments for children; and

  4. parenting awareness and coaching on topics such as health, nutrition, child safety, brain development and the importance of play.