Article Sidebar
Published:
Sep 16, 2021Keywords:
Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publishing rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Read more here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Main Article Content
Exploring the social function of congregations: A community development approach to develop ‘hub-and-spill’ early childhood development centres
Marichen van der Westhuizen
Rina Smith
Jacques W. Beukes
Abstract
This article reflects on the findings of a research study that investigated a community development project by CARITAS, a welfare organisation of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). The said organisation, together with local DRC congregations, and in a quest to address societal issues such as poverty and child neglect in the Northern Cape, developed early childhood development (ECD) centres in rural towns. The aim was to provide young children with quality care and to provide congregations with a platform to become active participants in community development projects. The study was conducted 5 years after the start of the project to explore the nature and value thereof. The outcomes of the study provide valuable insights regarding how such centres served as a tool to work towards ECD and a sense of community in these towns, while also addressing socio-economic issues. This article is aimed at presenting the findings as an example to be explored in other contexts.
