With over 20 years of FRD activity and more than 40 years of experience in young children care and education, we have developed and worked on hundreds of programs and projects in Europe and Asia, sharing our blueprint with other organizations and institutions around the world.
10 SPYNKA CHILDCARE CENTERS WITH PLAN INTERNATIONAL
The project aims to create ten childcare programs in the łódzkie voivodeship in Poland. Through comprehensive care, activities and play-based learning children will be provided with a safe place where they can develop freely.
Read moreSPYNKA – INTEGRATION OF UKRAINIAN AND POLISH CHILDREN
Based on our experiences we see an important need to support integration between Polish and Ukrainian children and families in communities they live.
Read morePilot project of opening and running Spynka childcare centers for Ukrainian Children
Provision of Early Childhood Development and play services in municipalities serving Ukrainian refugee families in Poland
Read morePLAYGROUPS – TAJIKISTAN STUDY VISIT
The visit was a continuation of the Foundation’s previous cooperation with Tajik NGOs, which we have been training and supporting in setting up Playgroups since 2016.
Read moreSCIENCE PARK
The project responds to two problems concerning the development of young children. The first is related to the Polish education system, which put not enough attention to the development of critical thinking, independence, problem solving or cooperation.
Read moreSENIORS AND CHILDREN – LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER
After the end of professional work, older people often feel unnecessary and lost in the new reality. In addition, they have less contact with their grandchildren due to the increasing mobility of young people.
Read morePLAYGROUPS IN KYRGYZSTAN
The project addresses the problem of low access to education for young children in Kyrgyzstan. We were implementing it in cooperation with a Kyrgyz partner – Фонд Подержки Оброзовательных Инитциатив (FPOI).
Read morePLAYGROUPS PLUS
For young mothers, returning to work or finding a job after a break related to childbirth and/or childrearing is not easy. They face a number of barriers, both systemic, social and psychological. This special moment in their personal and professional lives requires appropriate support. We used the potential of Playgroups to awaken young mothers’ career aspirations and plan their own development.
Read moreYOUNG INVESTIGATORS ARE HEALTHY INVESTIGATORS
Children have a natural need to explore, to understand the world – they ask questions, they create definitions to suit their understanding of reality, they want to touch and try everything, they build their own theories. Children’s early experiences have a long-term and formative impact on human brain development, skills and behavior.
Read moreLITTLE KOLBERG IN LOWER SILESIA
Knowledge of tradition and identity with the place of birth helps to ground self-esteem, self-confidence, a sense of security, but also curiosity and openness to the world. Regional education rarely appears in the educational programmes of kindergartens and schools. Children lack awareness of local traditions, they do not know legends, stories, melodies and songs from the area where they live.
Read moreWITH A LITTLE KOLBERG AROUND THE COUNTRY. PODLASIE.
Knowledge of traditions and identity with the place of birth helps to ground self-esteem, self-confidence, a sense of security, but also curiosity and openness to the world. Regional education rarely appears in the educational programmes of kindergartens and schools.
Read moreDIETARY EDUCATION FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN UNDER 3
The first three years of life are crucial for a child’s development due to intensive growth, and this is when the body is particularly sensitive to nutrient excess or deficiency. Meanwhile, the study “Comprehensive assessment of the diet of children aged 13-36 months in Poland” conducted in 2010 shows that the nutritional status of up to 54.5% of children is incorrect.
Read moreEDUCATION OF STAFF RESPONSIBLE FOR NUTRITION IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
The way of feeding and forming proper eating habits of children at a time when parents are much more involved in their professional work, thus devoting less time to raising children and young people, depends to the greatest extent on educational institutions.
Read moreLITTLE KOLBERG – PATRIOT IN THE CAPITAL
Knowledge of tradition and identity with the place of birth helps to ground self-esteem, self-confidence, a sense of security, but also curiosity and openness to the world. Regional education rarely appears in the educational programmes of kindergartens and schools. Children lack awareness of local traditions, they are not familiar with legends, stories, melodies and songs from the area they live in.
Read moreACTIVE SENIORS – ACTIVE COMMUNITY
In Poland, as in the rest of Europe, there are more and more elderly people, but in the common social space there is often no place for them.
Read moreENTREPRENEURIAL CHILDREN – BELARUS
In Belarus, the topic of economic education for young children is practically non-existent. It is not included in the core curriculum for kindergartens, it does not appear in the curriculum of pedagogical studies preparing early childhood education teachers. Probably, this is due to the belief that economic knowledge is too difficult for young children, and financial decisions concerning children are made by parents.
Read moreORIFLAME CHILD AND FAMILY CENTRE – JASTKÓW
Care and education services for families with young children are part of the municipality’s own tasks but municipalities are not obliged to run such services. As a result, children from birth to 3-4 years old living in villages are most often “invisible”. A major obstacle to creating local integrated services is the organisational structure.
Read moreYOUNG INVESTIGATORS IN JASTKOW
Children are young explorers of the world. They have innate curiosity and a tendency to experiment. They learn by doing – they observe, try things out, experience. They acquire knowledge when they are engaged and when the topic interests them. They learn about the world by trial and error. These natural inclinations of children can be fully developed by using the research project method.
Read moreTOGETHER FOR THE CHILDREN OF PRAGA SOUTH
The project answers to the problems reported by the inhabitants of the revitalised areas of Praga Południe: – lack of activities activating the local community, insufficient cultural and educational offer for the poorest residents, including children aged up to 6 years and poor access to information about this offer.
Read moreENTREPRENEURIAL CHILDREN WARSAW: WŁOCHY AND WOLA
The project complements the content of pre-school programmes that do not include elements of economic education and responds to the need to shape entrepreneurial attitudes in the youngest children.
Read morePLAYGROUPS FOR CHILDREN AND PARENTS IN TAJIKISTAN
In Tajikistan, supporting the development of young children is a neglected dimension of social policy. Also within education policy itself, very little attention is paid to it. Data from the Statistical Agency under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan show that in 2014 there were 550 crèches and kindergartens across the country, of which 398 were in urban areas and 152 in rural areas.
Read moreLOCAL COMMUNITY AND CIVIC ORGANISATIONS TOGETHER FOR CHILDREN
There are many NGOs and social cooperatives in Poland supporting the implementation of the municipality’s own tasks in the field of care and education of children. Organisations – especially small, locally operating ones – face financial problems, lack the time, resources and competences to professionalise their activities, diagnose needs and promote them in local communities to seek allies.
Read moreWITH LITTLE KOLBERG AROUND THE COUNTRY. WIELKOPOLSKA AND ŁÓDZKIE
Knowledge of tradition and identity with the place of birth helps to ground self-esteem, self-confidence, a sense of security, but also curiosity and openness to the world. Regional education rarely appears in the educational programmes of kindergartens and schools. Children lack awareness of local traditions, they are not familiar with legends, stories, melodies and songs from the area they live in.
Read moreLOCAL NGO ACTIVITIES FOR YOUNG CHILDREN IN MAZOWSZE
There are many NGOs in Poland that struggle with a lack of interest in their activities in the community. We want to support NGOs in conducting participatory needs assessments and thus strengthen their activities in communities. As FRD, we join these activities in a substantive and voluntary capacity.
Read moreCHALLENGES OF MODERN FATHERHOOD
Both in Belarus and Poland there is a lack of specialised offer for fathers of children going to kindergarten. Many female teachers wonder how to encourage men. The task of the project is to transfer from Belarus to Poland the experience in working with fathers that teachers affiliated with the Association of Parents and Educators “Step by Step” have.
Read moreYOUNG INVESTIGATORS
Children have a natural need to discover, understand the world – they ask questions, create definitions to suit their understanding of reality, they want to touch everything, try everything, build their own theories. Children’s early experiences have a long-term and formative impact on human brain development, skills and behavior.
Read moreCULTURAL EDUCATORS
We are partners of the Kulturalni Edukators programme, whose regional operator is the Mazovian Institute of Culture in 2016- 2018. Kulturalni Edukators is the Mazovian edition of the Very Young Culture programme run by the National Centre for Culture, and the MIK within its framework implements the Kulturalni Edukators – Mazovian Network for Education and Culture project.
Read moreCHILDREN AND FAMILY CENTRE – ORIFLAME JEZIORANY
Care and education services for families with young children are part of the municipality’s own tasks but municipalities are not obliged to provide such services. As a result, children from birth to 3-4 years old living in villages are most often “invisible”. A major obstacle to the creation of local integrated services is the organisational structure.
Read moreENTREPRENEURIAL CHILDREN
The aim of the project is to introduce basic economic concepts into the education of preschool children, to shape entrepreneurial attitudes and to develop social activity.
Read moreLITTLE KOLBERG IN OLSZTYN
To raise the awareness of pre-school and primary school teachers, employees of cultural institutions and animators working in the city of Olsztyn of the importance of introducing children to local culture and increasing knowledge of the customs, traditions and folk art of Warmia and Mazury.
Read moreDIAGNOSIS OF THE NEEDS OF YOUNG CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES IN THE CITY AND MUNICIPALITY OF PIASECZNO
We carried out the diagnosis of the needs of young children and their families in the City and Municipality of Piaseczno using the participatory method to promote a model of involving representatives of different social and professional groups in cooperation in the field of action for the development and education of young children.
Read morePLAYGROUPS FOR CHILDREN AND PARENTS – A PLACE FOR SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVATION
Belarus lacks a specialized educational offer for the youngest children and their parents. The task of the project is to transfer to Belarus the Playgroups that work well in Poland.
Read moreLITTLE KOLBERG – CONTINUATION
“Little Kolberg” was created to develop an attitude of attentiveness to roots, traditions, grandparents’ messages already in the youngest children, so we aim to spread the idea of including traditions, customs, old games, melodies in work with young children.
Read moreA REAL LIFE, NOT A PREDICTION. KORCZAK’S IDEAS IN CONTEMPORARY PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE
The aim of the series was to introduce themes related to children’s rights, contemporary pedagogical thought based on the assumption of the subjectivity of the child into academic and public discussion.
Read moreCHILDREN AND FAMILY CENTRES – ORIFLAME NIWISKA AND OLSZYNA
Care and educational services for families with young children are part of the municipality’s own tasks, but municipalities are not obliged to run such services. As a result, children from birth to 3-4 years old living in villages are most often “invisible”. A major obstacle to the creation of local integrated services is the organisational structure. The municipality’s tasks in the areas of social welfare, education, health, culture have separate (departmental) funding paths, which leads to sectorisation of services, lack of contact between institutions and difficulties in combining the budgets of individual institutions. Our answer to this problem is the Child and Family Centres.
Read moreLOCAL SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR FAMILIES AT RISK OF EXCLUSION
In rural areas, due to the lack of educational services, young children – especially those growing up in families at risk of exclusion – have worse chances for development. Municipalities are not obliged to provide services for the youngest children, and the institutions covering young children only deal with a fragment of their lives, e.g. the health service watches over vaccinations and the education service watches over whether the child has pre-school preparation. No institution has a holistic view of the situation of families with young children.
Read moreFATHERS AND CHILDREN
The project stems from the Comenius Foundation’s experience of setting up Playgroups. Despite the incentives, Playgroup meetings are mainly attended by mothers. Fathers appear incidentally. Since we believe that the responsibility for raising children applies equally to mothers and fathers, we want fathers to see that they can take care of their children just as well as mothers and support women in returning to work.
Read moreLITTLE KOLBERG
Knowledge of traditions and identity with the place of birth helps to ground self-esteem, self-confidence, a sense of security, but also curiosity and openness to the world. Regional education rarely appears in the educational programmes of kindergartens and schools. Children lack awareness of local traditions, they do not know legends, stories, melodies and songs from the area they live in. Teachers emphasise that they lack opportunities to gain competence in cultural heritage. The aim of Little Kolberg was to educate the youngest children to be attentive to their roots, traditions and the legacy of their grandparents.
Read moreENTREPRENEURIAL CHILDREN
The aim of the project was to broaden economic knowledge, develop entrepreneurial competences and shape dispositions to be entrepreneurial in children aged 4 to 7 years old by participating in educational activities and providing knowledge and tools to improve skills to ten people who run “Entrepreneurial Children” activities with children.
Read moreCHILDREN AND PARENTS IN THE LIBRARY
In rural areas and small towns there is a dramatic lack of developmental and educational provision for young children, especially those under 3 years of age. Over 50% of 3-5 year olds do not attend pre-school due to a lack of nursery schools. We have decided that libraries are an excellent place to extend their activities to include activities for the youngest children.
Read moreSENIORS FOR THE YOUNGEST
Seniors organized different activities for young children. The direct recipients of the project were 64 senior citizens. In addition, it was attended by representatives of municipal institutions and organisations, parents and children. In total, more than 1,300 people took part in the project.
Read moreI’LL BE WHO I WANT
The main task of the “I will be who I want” project was to provide adults with innovative educational tools to strengthen children’s self-esteem, recognition of their own predispositions, needs and interests, and acceptance of different attitudes and choices.
Read moreSEMINARS “ABOUT EDUCATION FROM THE BEGINNING”
The aim of the seminars “About education from the beginning” was to initiate a discussion about the assumptions underlying education: What are its goals? Who are the child and the teacher in our understanding? What is knowledge? How do we learn? What values should education be based on? What are values for a child? What are values for an adult?
Read moreCHILD AND FAMILY CENTRES – SUPPORT FOR FAMILIES WITH YOUNG CHILDREN IN RURAL AREAS
Care and educational services for families with young children are part of the municipalities’ own tasks, but municipalities are not obliged to provide such services. As a result, children from birth to 3-4 years old living in villages are most often “invisible”. A major obstacle to the creation of local integrated services is the organisational structure.
Read moreTOY – OLD AND YOUNG TOGETHER
In Poland, but also in Europe, intergenerational ties are loosening and children have less and less contact with their grandparents. Children have less and less contact with their grandparents. Retired senior citizens often feel lonely and useless. Both children and senior citizens have enormous potential, they are a mine of knowledge and skills, they just lack the space to spend time together and learn from each other.
Read moreYOUNG INVESTIGATORS I AND II
The project involved 21 rural and rural-urban municipalities from 10 provinces: Podlaskie – Augustów, Szypliszki; Warmińsko-Mazurskie – Barciany, Kętrzyn, Lubawa; Mazowieckie – Grudusk, Mochowo, Przasnysz; Łódzkie – Burzenin, Rawa Mazowiecka, Głuchów; Lubelskie – Gorzków, Stoczek Łukowski; Lubuskie – Dobiegniew, Kłodawa; Kujawsko-pomorskie – Gniewkowo, Inowrocław; Wielkopolskie – Skoki; Małopolskie – Klucze, Dolnośląskie – Strzelin, Wiązów.
Read moreFROM THE HEART FOR THE CHILD
Experience gained during the implementation of the Young Child Development Programme as well as the entry into force of the so-called “Nursery Act” which, although it facilitated the establishment of new legal forms of nursery care, did not specify how to provide such care, gave an impulse to create the “From Heart for a Child” programme.
Read morePLAYGROUPS FOR CHILDREN AND PARENTS
In Poland, investing in the development of young children is not a priority in social and educational policies, either on a national or local level. Social awareness of the impact of a good childhood on a person’s success in life is too low. Especially in rural areas, there is a lack of care and educational solutions for the youngest children – from birth to pre-school age.
Read moreLIBRARY ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN AND PARENTS I AND II
In rural areas and small towns there is a dramatic lack of developmental and educational opportunities for young children, especially those under 3 years of age. Due to the lack of kindergartens, more than 50% of 3-5 year old children do not participate in pre-school education. We have decided that libraries are an excellent place to extend their activities to include activities for the youngest children.
Read moreTHE YOUNG CHILD DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
In 2010 we implemented the Early Childhood Development Programme in cooperation with the SOS Children’s Villages Association.
Read moreFOR CHILDREN III
Project For Children III was implemented by the Child Development Foundation in cooperation with the Polish-American Freedom Foundation between July 2009 and June 2010.
Read moreINVISIBLE CHILDREN
The majority of young children in rural areas, before entering kindergarten, are not covered by any institutional care and their social contacts are limited to their immediate family. Research and experience show that the developmental, educational and social needs of children at this age are enormous, and their failure to be met for some of them means losing the chance for full development and a successful future. Local authorities – even if they appreciate the importance of this problem – fail to provide children with an adequate developmental and educational offer.
Read morePRESHOOL CENTRES – A CHANCE FOR A GOOD START
Experience gained during the implementation of the “Where there are no preschools” programme led to the creation of the “Pre-school Centres – a chance for a good start” project.
Read more