April 27: “Povești sub Lupă” brings 50 Reading and Science Corners in poor kindergartens

OvidiuRo launches Povești sub Lupă, a project supported by Raiffeisen bank that is building infrastructure for literacy & science in poor rural communities by equipping 50 kindergarten classrooms with Reading & Science Corners, while creating a network of 50 master teachers working with poor children. Besides a rich experience in kindergarten, the project also provides 1000 children their own books to take home, and engages their parents in kindergarten activities.

The project was launched in March, 2018 when 10 pilot-kindergartens were equipped with Reading & Science Corners. Forty more kindergarten classes will be equipped at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. Each child will receive, for three month, the “book of the month” – his/her own picture book to take home.

The pilot-communities where the 10 corners were created in March and April were in Alba, Brașov, Dâmbovița, Dolj, Iași, Maramureș, Prahova, Sibiu și Vaslui counties. 40 more Reading and Science corners will be created in August and September, in other disadvantaged communities in Romania.

The project comes a result of our findings in the field, along the years: as part of our effort to facilitate the implementation of Law #248/2015, the OvR team visited 500 rural kindergartens in 38 counties. We were struck that, even though most of the school buildings had been renovated or replaced, the classrooms were mostly devoid of age-appropriate learning materials and the teachers rarely took advantage of the many simple activities about the physical world around them that could be utilized through picture books and science experiments.