Today, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Foundation T-Mobile for Macedonia presented the campaign "The first five are the most important”. The campaign aims to promote the importance of early childhood development and to mobilize support for opening new early childhood development centres.

The campaign is a response to the need to support parents and caregivers to better understand the development needs of children in the most important years of life - the first five. “With the campaign we aim to help parents learn more about how to better nurture their children in the first five years of life, and equally important, demand the care with equal quality from other adults who care for their children – kindergarten teachers, nannies or other members of the family,” said Dr. Bertrand Desmoulins, UNICEF Representative.

The campaign also responds to the need to increase access to early childhood development services. Currently, only the state-funded kindergartens and a small number of early childhood development centres that were opened with UNICEF support, provide such services. Although the access to these services has doubled since 2005, currently only 1 in 5 children (22%) aged 3 to 5 goes to kindergarten or an early childhood development centre.

The campaign also aims to mobilize support from multiple stakeholders – municipalities, private companies and individuals – in order to provide access to early childhood development quality programmes for as many as possible children. At the beginning of the year, as part of the partnership with UNICEF, the Foundation T-Mobile for Macedonia pledged to donate $50,000 for opening additional early childhood development centres. The campaign invites the municipalities to partner with UNICEF and private companies and individuals to donate in order to further expand the network of early childhood development programmes in those communities that need them the most.

“Knowing the importance and the need of early childhood development, our aim is to encourage the parents and caregivers to learn more, and also to engage all social stakeholders to open as many early childhood development centres as possible, as an alternative for the kindergartens, especially in communities where it is not financially viable to build kindergartens, such as rural and marginalized communities. Thus, children from vulnerable communities will receive equal opportunities for preschool education which will help them perform better at school and be more successful in life. This is why today we start a campaign that not only underlines the importance of early childhood development, but also encourages generating funds for opening new early childhood development centres. With this campaign, first we would like to invite the municipalities to enter into partnership with UNICEF, the business community to adopt centres and all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia to donate at the donation number 143 555 from all operators”, said Ms. Lea Lipsa, Director of the Foundation T -Mobile for Macedonia.

Currently, 20 early childhood development centres are functioning that were opened via the UNICEF programmes for support of the local self-government. With the funds donated by the Foundation T-Mobile for Macedonia, five early childhood development centres will be opened in Jargulica (Radovis), Selce (Tetovo), Desovo (Dolneni), Zleovo (Radovish), and Dolno Lisice (Aerodrom).

The campaign was developed with support from the following individuals and companies who donated their time and services: Alfa TV; Alsat TV; crnobelo.mk; danu.biz; Httpool; kajgana.mk; Koha; Kristijan Ristevski; Media Print Macedonia; femina.mk; MRTV; Nebojsa Gelevski; Nextsense, Publicis; Sitel TV, Telma TV and time.mk. The campaign is supported by all three mobile operators: T-Mobile, ONE and VIP via the donation number 070/075/077 143 555.

To find out more about the campaign “The first five are the most important”, visit the web page www.prvite5.mk. Also, follow the campaign on www.facebook.com/pvite5 and https://twitter.com/prvite5 to follow the results of the activities.

For more information, please contact:
Lea Lipsha, Director of Foundation T-Mobile for Macedonia, E-Mail: FoundationT-MobileforMacedonia@telekom.mk,
Suzie Pappas Capovska, Communication Officer, UNICEF Skopje, E-mail: spappas@unicef.org

Additional information:
The early childhood development centres that will be opened within the initiative will operate in accordance with a previously tested model of UNICEF. The early childhood development centres that are formally regulated in the Law on Child Protection represent the most cost-effective alternative to kindergartens. They best meet the needs of the communities that do not have kindergartens, such as rural and marginalized communities. Children attend an organized learning programmes for a few hours during the day and parents participate in educational programmes on how to work better with children at home. The programme, according to which the centres operate, is based on the Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS) prepared with UNICEF support.

All centres will be opened in partnership with the municipalities that provide the physical space (building) for the centre. All funds that will be raised through this initiative will be managed by UNICEF to cover the costs for minor refurbishments and adaptation of the space; to equip the centre with furniture, toys, educational material and didactic material, as well as to develop material for the parents and train the educators in the implementation of the latest methods in the field of early childhood development.

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