15 women graduate with ECD skills

The women are aged between 20 and 50 years old.

Says LexisNexis South Africa CEO, Billy Last: "LexisNexis is committed to actively working to advance the rule of law, and we strive to support corporate citizenship initiatives that strengthen civil society.

"We believe that by empowering these women through education, they can maintain and run self-sufficient ECD sites so that young children can receive the basic human right of education. This in turn benefits the wider community and helps to establish stable and self-sufficient societies."

Impacting the lives of young children

TREE is a non-profit organisation based in Durban. Its aim is to provide quality programming and resources to improve the ECD skills of adults, particularly women from disadvantaged communities, who impact the lives of young children.

It does so through the provision of ECD qualifications and age appropriate quality ECD resources.

Says James Martens, chairman of TREE: "The funding of around R125,000 from LexisNexis in 2011 supported the development of 15 underprivileged women over two years and has allowed TREE to implement a quality, holistic and sustainable early childhood development programme."

He adds: "There have already been significant changes to the ECD centres where these women work which will improve the quality of early childhood development programming for the young children in this community. All across KZN, TREE is working with women who are committed to making the difference in their communities. TREE is grateful to partners such as LexisNexis who provide the necessary funding to make this work possible."

"We are proud to have partnered with TREE as we share their vision of seeing a nation that values and affirms young children and provides them with opportunities to develop to their full potential and become educated and law-abiding citizens of our country," adds Mr Last.