Religious leaders call for regulation of daycare facilities

Pastor Onyango said with time, they will establish Grade 1 to Grade 8 and later come up with a secondary school.

Reverend Juma called on the government to help the daycare centres be more professional, child-friendly and hygienic.

“Out there, when children are left with house helps and some mothers who purport to offer childcare services, things are not always as they should be,” she said.

The reverend noted that there have been cases of child neglect and torture when they are left with unprofessionals.

“That is why we call on the government to help monitor these daycare facilities to make sure they are run professionally, with standard care and facilities that are child-friendly,” Rev Juma said.

She also called on well-wishers to come out and support daycare facilities in the slum and urban-poor areas.

“We have received support from Pastor Osborne Juma from the UK and ask others to also help give a child in Mombasa a firm foundation like these ones here will get to help raise great people who will help our country in future,” Rev Juma said.

Bishop-elect Ezekiel Abele called on busy working mothers to not com promise on the future of their children.

He encouraged them to take the children to professional daycare centres where they children will be safe and get a firm basic educational foundation as they go hustle for money.

“Professionals will ensure your children are well taken care of even when they get sick. This is because there are standby nurses who are on call to take care of them should they fall sick,” Bishop-elect Abele said.

Kidogo Early Years Limited, an organization involved in the care of children, especially those under the age of five, said childcare needs more investment in resources across different sectors.

“The facilities are coming up because the economic situation in the country has necessitated everyone to go out and look for money. Who will take care of the young children then? That is why daycare facilities are coming up,” Kidogo Early Years director of policy and partnerships Wachuka Hurt said.

However, she said, Kenya does not have a child policy, especially for those under five years of age, who are about seven million in Kenya at the moment.

Every day, she said, thousands of working mothers in East Africa’s informal settlements drop off their young children at unlicensed and congested community ‘baby care’ centres.

This, Hurt said, is mainly because of the lack of a child policy that also will go a long way in providing the minimum standards required.

“We are lucky enough to be at the table with the national government. Kenya has a national childcare policy that is being drafted and we are hoping that that policy can also translate at the county level.

“What has been missing in the past is a ministry that is responsible for children between years 0-3. But we are very happy that the government is now at the table,” Hurt said.

Hurt said the health, growth and development of the children is severely compromised in such facilities if there is no one to guide them on the requirements that a child needs to grow and develop well.

Without supportive care in their early years, these children enter school with physical and learning disabilities that result in them being locked in an intergenerational cycle of poverty that is near impossible to escape, according to Hurt.

Daycare facilities that sprout in, especially, poor and urban-poor neighbourhoods need keen monitoring, religious leaders in Mombasa have said.

Power of the Word Church’s pastor Josephine Onyango and her Kenya Assembly of God, Tudor counterpart Reverend Mary Juma on Saturday said unprofessional daycare facilities could severely compromise the health, growth and development of the children.

“When we started Pocar school, we had a few hitches after we consulted a professional and they gave us guidelines on some issues that we had not considered.

“We thank God because the Carter Foundation came right on time. We joined hands and renamed the school Pocar, from Power and Carter, and they helped us establish a professional daycare facility and school,” Pastor Onyango said.

She spoke during the official launch of the school, which has a daycare facility with a capacity of about 30 children and PP1 and PP2 classrooms with a capacity of 30 each too.

American pageant Keerah Yeowang, who was the chief guest at the official launch, said education is one of the most important aspects of a person’s life and is the key to success.

“Children are our future and it is important to put a firm foundation in place for a child’s development,” the Miss Midwest Galaxy 2024 said.

She said for the Carter Foundation to partner with Power of the Word Church is a great gift for the children of the Maweni area in the Nyali sub-county where the Pocar school is established.

Yeowang said children are a gift from God and they should be given the best care from the early years to help them grow into important people in society, who have the confidence to become leaders.

“It is also important for the young children to be brought up in a setting where they also get religious upbringing so they end up being firm believers,” she said.