COMM:
It isn’t Rio de Janeiro, it isn’t ‘City of God’. It isn’t Mumbai, it isn’t ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. It’s the biggest slum in Africa. Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘City of God’ - two global hit films about kids and slums. Here in Kibera, they’ve even made their own, on kids, gangs and music. By 2050 one in three people could be living in slums - three billion slum dwellers, 600 million of them children. So far in ‘Early Life’ we’ve seen the first five years of a child’s development can be crucial. So is Kibera seizing the opportunity? In our film we’ve put together a typical day in the lives of four children, under five.

From daybreak sub Saharan Africa’s biggest slum is noisy, chaotic, and unhealthy. There’s violence: robberies, carjackings; vigilantes. On some days murder victims left on display. There are no proper drains and no rubbish collection. Stinking latrines and open sewers. Malaria and typhoid are common. The death rate for under fives here is three times Nairobi’s as a whole. So far four year old Nasuru’s survived.

Nasuru and his cousin Maria go to a pre-school run by the church - there are no Kenyan government ones. Pre-school gives Nasuru’s mum time to work. It feeds him, and keeps him away from urban stress and unpleasant strangers – a new concern after the post election violence in 2007.

HALIMA NASURU:
It’s no good for children because… because if you look at this place where we live, there are drunkards who just come and start talking dirty, and as they talk the children are listening.

COMM:
But it’s not just the danger of harm or moral corruption. Stress can raise levels of the hormone cortisol, permanently altering the brain's architecture. The result can be kids with a dangerously short fuse.

PROF. JACK SHONKOFF, Harvard Centre on the Developing Child:
We have a growing science space that tells us that among the many things that children learn early in their life is a sense of safety and a sense of threat. And we know that children who are in unstable or in threatening situations develop adaptive mechanisms to cope with that. And one of the more interesting things that’s been illustrated by this work is the extent which children who live in violent, threatening environments over-interpret threat in circumstances that other children as they’re growing up might see as neutral. And this is adaptive - if you live in a violent threatening environment, it is good for you to kind of have a short fuse.

COMM:
Pre-school is a safe space for the kids. Somewhere they can develop peacefully –and, in theory, become less violent adults. But many parents can’t afford the ten dollars a month fees. Nasuru’s mum can only afford five. So she’s constantly in arrears.

TEACHER:
The sun is there…

CHILDREN:
The sun is there!

TEACHER:
The sun is there…

CHILDREN:
The sun is there!

COMM:
But pre-school isn’t just about avoiding stress. It’s also about stimulating young brains when they’re developing most rapidly.

CHILDREN:
I wake up in the morning!

TEACHER:
I wash my face…

CHILDREN:
I wash my face!

TEACHER:
I dress myself…

CHILDREN:
I dress myself!

COMM:
Interaction with caring adults is essential for healthy development.

TEACHER:
I take a cup of tea…

CHILDREN:
I take a cup of tea!

TEACHER:
I say bye-bye to dad….

CHILDREN IN BACKGROUND:
Say bye-bye to dad!

TEACHER:
Say bye-bye to aunt…

COMM:
Interaction helps build the circuitry of the brain - right through the early years.

TEACHER:
Then I run to school!

COMM:
There are some kids in Kibera who aren’t lucky enough to go to pre-school. Both Natasha’s parents have died and her uncle can’t afford to send her to pre-school regularly. So at four Natasha has been in and out of pre-school. Natasha spends most of the day hanging around the neighbourhood. She’s locked out - her uncle doesn’t trust her alone in the house. She spends her day killing time… waiting for friends to return from school.

SALLY GRANTHAM-MCGREGOR, Institute of Child Health, London:
I think there’s millions of Natashas around the world. The majority of children who are poor in developing countries are like Natasha. The staying at home and working maybe, or doing nothing constructive in terms of their development, is the norm I would say.

STEVE BRADSHAW:
And the danger of that is?

SALLY GRANTHAM-MCGREGOR:
Well, they won’t develop to their full potential in language and cognitive development and in social skills - and they will be overwhelmed when they get to school.

COMM:
This morning in Nasuru’s class it’s a rubber band that provides a quick lesson in social skills. It’s going to be a face-off. But Nasuru’s classmate Brian decides not to get involved.

Half a kilometre away at Starays pre-school, young teacher Madahana starts morning art class. Patience joined a few months ago and it’s her first chance to play with colours.

MADAHANA:
Go and sit over there. Sit over there!

COMM:
Pre-school isn’t just about social skills. It’s about creativity too.

PATIENCE:
Teacher, can I have another block?

COMM:
Experts disagree how critical the first five years are and whether more funding should be diverted to early childhood development. But many of those who set the agenda for global development now regard early childhood as a key priority.

JAMES WOLFENSOHN, Former President, World Bank:
The child of course comes into the world with many gifts but they need to be developed. The synapses in the brain need to be developed, the feelings need to be developed, the ability to have social contact needs to be developed, the creative elements need to be developed, the language needs to be developed. And you can’t leave it till five or six years old. No, this all happens much earlier - and all the evidence suggest that those children that have this stimulation on all those areas, and combined with that health and proper nutrition to make sure that they develop appropriately, that those kids over lifetime will do better than other children.

COMM:
Overstressed, understimulated, kids like Natasha face a more uncertain future. Even if they do get to primary school, it’s hard to recover from a poor start. What can lie in wait: petty crime, violence, unwanted teenage pregnancy.

NATASHA
Gone to the lake.

AMOS:
What is he doing?

NATASHA:
To get fish

AMOS:
When does he come back?

NATASHA:
At eight.

AMOS:
When?

NATASHA:
At eight in the evening.

MADAHANA (SINGING):
I can play a drum I can play a drum I can play a drum What can you do? I can play a horn…

COMM:
Pre-school beats hanging around? Sounds obvious. Problem is – what kind of pre-school? Some African traditions can conflict with Western ideals.

MADAHANA, Teacher:
You find that in our African community children are not allowed to speak when elder people are speaking. They just have to remain silent, which conflicts with freedom of expression. You find that children learn, they get more confident when they express themselves, they express their ideas. And when you bang them, you keep on telling them ‘shut up, shut up’, the child stops thinking.

COMM:
But some experts fear Western pre-schooling can ignore African definitions of intelligence. This game is about ‘feeding my family’.

CHILD:
Take this

OTHER KIDS:
Me! Me! Me!

PROFESSOR BAME NSAMENANG, University of Yaounde, Cameroon:
Unlike in the West (where) children are involved in nonsense play, African children actually when they play, they are doing livelihood tasks. Their play is around things that sustain the lives of families. So I refer to that as ‘responsible intelligence’.

COMM:
Some critics say that the Western model pushes children towards creative individualism and personal ambition - walking alone through the world. The African model, it’s said, encourages children to learn from each other and develop social skills. Not that Patience sees it that way.

ACHI:
Why do you like this tin game?

PATIENCE:
Because I like jumping on the railway track when I go home.

PROFESSOR BAME:
The child-to-child relationship and interaction - peer mentoring right from an early age - is very important and very helpful. It is really there, in the sense that children are concerned about not leaving others behind. Okay, so they are very helpful. So in an African setting that plays out in the sense that from an early age parents monitor and ensure that their children are helpful and such that even if a child is excelling in school learning, parents are concerned if that child is not socially smart.

TEACHER:
Can you shout like a cat?

CHILDREN:
MEOW! MEOW!

TEACHER:
Yaaaay! Can you shout like a dog? WOOF!

CHILDREN:
WOOF! WOOF!

COMM:
With state primary schools now free, the Kenyan education budget is fully stretched. So here in Kibera pre-schools are organised by the church, community groups and parents. Classes can be big, Brian and Nasuru have 54 class mates - and enrolments are up. After the election violence parents think twice before leaving kids with neighbours. Pre-school is more valued than ever. Not just for food but for security.

Brian’s mother came to Kibera from western Kenya hoping her family would have a good life. She hoped for a better life but now can’t afford to send her other kids to pre-school. So she’s worried Brian’s younger brother Fidel could take lessons not from teachers, but from strangers.

MARY ATIENO:
Most children are bad mannered because children in Kibera hang around areas where there are drunks or thieves. Sometimes the children hear bad stories from these people who don’t go to work and are influenced by them. I sit down with my children, I try to tell them not to do the bad things like ‘If you go to steal, you will be lynched, if you drink alcohol, the police will detain you for life and I would never see you again.’ Warning them like this scares them.

COMM:
When she’s working, Brian’s mother entrusts her 16-year–old niece Lydia to looks after Fidel and his baby brother Elvis. Back in class five hours under a hot tin roof ends with a sleep on a dirt floor, but what about the rest of the day? Can early childhood development happen outside pre-school too? Even while leaving there’s still a chance to help young minds develop. Nasuru still learning the social skills.

Time to go home. But does home help or hinder early child development? Patience’s mother washes clothes for a living. She’s taken the afternoon off to help with homework.

MABLE MIJIDE ENZOVELI:
L, M, N…

PATIENCE:
L, N, M.

MABLE:
O, P…

PATIENCE:
O, P.

MABLE:
Q, R…

COMM:
Patience’s mother has a practical take on the difference pre-school has made.

MABLE:
Patience has really changed with pre-school. Now if I call her when she is far away she will come running. I can also send her to the shops and she goes running. When I am sick in bed I can send her to go buy me some medicine and she will run and fetch it.

COMM:
But no such stimulation for Natasha or the baby she’s looking after. Nasuru‘s back home already. It’s about to get busy for his mother. Potatoes need to be fried and sold, and since going to pre-school Nasuru has been helping out more.

NASURU:
I do help carry. I carry.

AMOS:
What do you carry?

NASURU:
If I am asked I carry chapattis.

NASURU’S MOTHER:
Before I took him to school he was stubborn but now that he is going to school he is changing. I used to ask Nasuru to stop doing something but he used to tell me to stop stressing him out because he was still a child!

COMM:
Patience also enjoys helping her mother out.

PATIENCE:
Mum we need a bowl for the veg and one for the stems.

PATIENCE’S MOTHER:
If she finds onions on the table, she wants to slice. If I am not near I worry she might cut herself, so I give her a blunt knife so that she can learn how to cut and be contented that she has helped her mother.

AMOS:
Are you cooking?

PATIENCE:
I am preparing the veg but not cooking.

AMOS:
Who will then?

PATIENCE:
My mother will.

COMM:
It’s an everyday task. But some experts say it is still ‘cognitive stimulation’ - stimulating kids to think. And, they say, learning at home, the African way, should not be overlooked in the rush for pre-school.

PROFESSOR BAME:
Most African parents would not answer directly mother, father, how did you do that? The typical response would be: ‘Don’t you have eyes?’ And it is translated into you are expected to watch, to observe, see what I do and know it and not ask me - it’s not for me to teach you. So, and I think that is far more cognitive stimulation where the child is figuring out things and not being prodded, not being pushed or instructed.

COMM:
Back in Brian’s school the older kids are still at it – now creative drawing. Volunteer teacher Sarah is concerned about traditional ways.

SARAH:
In the West, we’re very much taught to think for ourselves, even question authority - you know just all of that individual thinking - and here you do everything as a group, even in the classroom. And so it is very hard for people to do - for the children to do something on their own. Often times, even some of the students if they’re sitting near each other, they’ll all draw the same thing.

PATIENCE’S FRIENDS SING:
Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday, Dear Patience. Happy Birthday to you!

COMM:
It’s Patience’s fourth birthday. The push for early childhood development came from the West. So is the West imposing its own model of how kids should grow up?

SALLY GRANTHAM-MCGREGOR:
Well this is a common criticism that we, the West, are imposing practices on Africa that aren’t appropriate - and to some extent it may be true. But if you speak to the parents and ask them what they want for their child, you will be amazed that they want their children to be doctors, teachers, nurses. They are very ambitious for their children. As soon as they understand that the children are not going to have a better life than they’re having - which is what most parents want - unless they do something about early child development, things aren’t going to improve.

COMM:
Next year will be Patience’s first year at primary school. She could grow up to be… well anything, really.

JAMES WOLFENSOHN:
If you give the kids better stimulation in those early years, they will do better in their primary, secondary, and tertiary years; they will stay in school. The evidence is overwhelming that if you give them better stimulation in the early years and health and education and nutrition, that if you can get to the kids in those years then your task in primary, secondary and tertiary is much better. And so it is not a waste of money it is… it’s an investment.

COMM:
Early childhood development may seem unaffordable to poor countries and poor parents. But risks can be worth taking.

PROFESSOR BAME:
When I look at my own life I see that because I am the son of illiterate - starkly illiterate parents who pushed me to go into the world and they gave that opportunity and they didn’t fear anything. I mean, I think the essential thing is to dare, to dare responsibly.

COMM:
Natasha’s uncle hopes she can go to pre-school too soon. He’s already brought her a uniform. It’s been estimated there are two hundred million children like Natasha in the world. Many may not recover from a poor start. But for Natasha, there’s still hope.

END

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