The Sun International CEO SleepOut™ - an opportunity for uplifting Early Childhood Development in SA
'Empathy not charity' - a catch phrase that is associated with The CEO SleepOut™. The ASHA Trust is indicative of this principle, since it is a beneficiary that is also participating. Director of ASHA Trust, Deidre Caulwell walks through what this means for the organisation.
Director of ASHA Trust, Deidre Caulwell's excitement over participating while also a beneficiary of this year's The Sun International CEO SleepOut™ is palpable: "As ASHA, we are really very excited, particularly as we’ve been nominated as a beneficiary for this year’s campaign. We’re delighted by the number of CEOs that are standing up and saying ‘We’re in!’ and I think it’s going to make a significant difference to education. We’re a non-government organisation that’s been working in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector for decades now and we particularly focus on the informal creches in communities around South Africa that are particularly disadvantaged, because what we’re finding there is that the infrastructure is considerably lacking in those areas because of poverty of course.”
How will the funds raised at The Sun International CEO SleepOut™ assist the ASHA Trust?: "Our vision is that every preschool child in South Africa has access to effective and quality early childhood care. We are in discussions with the accrediting authorities to get a program accredited to help women who are running these centres get onto an ECD career path: it would go a long way to that. And with our vision of offering our services in many more provinces, because at the moment, we’re working in Gauteng and Mpumalanga, but we would love to get operations going in the North West or Limpopo, because we’re daily getting requests from women who are running their own little centres from those areas and need the kind of support that we provide to help them become registered, legitimate daycare centres.”
Deidre has worked in the education sector for 40 years.
She qualified as a kindergarten teacher and later specialized in remedial education through the University of Natal. Deidre has held several management positions in the education sector and been the Director of ASHA Trust since 2008.
Deidre has called on the CEO of Anchor Capital, Peter Armitage to Rise Up To The Challenge #4Leaders4Change