Learning with Bottle Caps

Four children crouch on the sandy ground. In front of them lie colorful bottle caps, and the syllable »fi« is written on a slate. A boy grins at the camera as if he has just accomplished something big. Maybe he has.

In many villages in Tanzania, early childhood education is hard to find and barely affordable for families. Our partners have set up preschool centers there, where 968 children are currently learning and receiving at least one nutritious meal a day. There are no expensive learning materials. Instead, there are bottle caps, corn cobs, and hand-drawn pictures. Using things the children know from everyday life, letters and numbers become tangible.

But it’s about more than reading and math. At the centers, the children hear about Jesus, and this year the team received special training to share the Gospel with them in an age-appropriate way. Through home visits, the team also reaches parents. Together with them, it works to prevent school dropouts, abuse, and the early marriage of girls.

The fruit will soon be evident: 282 children are set to start elementary school in 2027.