The values training – guided by the manual – trains practitioners in 15 sessions (1 module per 6 hour session) to understand and absorb a core set of universal values and also to acquire the necessary skills to teach these values to the children in their care. In the case of this project, it was agreed that the Domino trainers will be trained in the values programme and, in turn, train the practitioners in the selected sites. This initial training programme will be followed by ongoing monitoring and evaluation and the parallel sessions of Food & Nutrition, Creative Arts and Physical Development (provided by the relevant departments of the Durban University of Technology) in 2017.
Some of the key objectives of the values training programme are to develop in practitioners the capacity and ability to:
Reflect on their teaching practice
Develop a values frame of reference
Link the values with the themes
Integrate the values into the daily programme
Encourage the spread of the values to staff and parents
Promote a values ethos at site level
One of the more exciting experiences of the programme was story writing – learning the principles and techniques of writing and illustrating your own stories, to which the trainers were exposed for the very first time. The training included ways to discover concepts and values in the stories, how to ask open-ended questions that encourage the child to explore more words, values and concepts and translate into action, to distinguish between bad/good words and explore feelings through the stories. This section also encouraged trainers to engage in discussions on the meanings of stories, as well as to read magazines and newspapers and make use of libraries. All the above applications are designed to reinforce human rights and values, the programme’s fundamental objective.
The training also developed: trainers’ communication skills – during group sessions and presentations – thus improving self-confidence and esteem; carefully implementing teaching about values; effective ways to support practitioners; a sense of independence and confidence to train effectively.
A further boost for GDT’s ECD programme came when Dr Errnestina Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi, received notification recently that her paper based on the work her students did in collaboration with the GDT’s Values promotion programme was selected for presentation at the 19th International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (Assitej) World Congress in Cape Town the first on the African continent in May 2017, entitled the Cradle of Creativity.
Dr Mathonsi is a lecturer in the Durban University of Technology’s Arts faculty. She promoted a programme in which the students dramatized the GDT stories teaching values. The students took this production to the preschools in Kwa Makutha, a township in the South of eThekwini.
The programme of the conference comprises a Festival, a Conference and a World Congress, all dedicated to theatre for young audiences. Dr Mathonsi will be presenting her paper at this International event.
The World Congress is the most important meeting of all members of ASSITEJ which takes place once every three years.