WEAVE’s Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) wanted to impart knowledge about child development to teachers in order for them to learn how to better treat their young students.  In order to achieve this objective, the ECCD team conducted a five-day training for nursery teachers last March 29-31 and April 1-2 at Ban Don Yan Karen refugee camp and Plaing Japense village in Mon area, respectively.  The training was about child development and how to use visual aids such as pocket charts, flash cards, table charts, plastic story materials and matching cards.  The participants were composed of the head teachers, nursery teachers, safe house staff, bible school staff, school staff, and students.

According to the teachers who attended the training, they are now able to understand what child development is and the basic things children are able to do within each development stage from birth until they reach the age of eight.

In addition, they also said that they learned how to make pocket charts, flash cards, plastic stories, matching cards and table charts from the training.  They learned a lot of practical ideas for their work.

The other things that they learned and also enjoyed the most were the games and songs that were part of the training.  They said that these activities are helpful in getting the attention of the students.

Because of the experience of ECCD in conducting training sessions on human rights and child rights, the Ethnic Migrant Families Society (EMFS) invited ECCD to give a training last April 21-23 for nursery teachers, community workers, care takers, and students who are all working for EMFS.  The topics that were discussed included the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and child protection.  According to the attendees who were mostly Thai, Karen, and Shan people the training made them better understand the historical development of children’s rights in a broader context.