About Us
Weʼre on a mission to get quality early childhood development (ECD) to millions of rural preschoolers by activating the power of parents. A staggering 250 million children globally miss out on ECD, the majority in rural communities in the Global South. Governments and formal pre-primary systems have an essential role, but the most critica and most overlooked—part of the challenge is parents. Rural children spend 75% of their time at home, giving parents the greatest opportunity to influence development. Yet many struggle to provide nurturing care and early learning. They believe they lack resources and skills, and many donʼt realise how crucial the early years are. Targeted support is scarce, especially in low-literacy communities. Women who carry the bulk of childcare alongside farming and domestic work face the greatest burden.
Our big idea: Parents are the sleeping giants. We awaken their potential, transforming them into confident, capable ECD providers. We pair this with innovative scale solutions and rigorous implementation systems to replicate quickly, cheaply, and sustainably. We deliver at scale in Ghana and Uganda through two proven models:
Government partnerships, where our parent-centered programme is delivered through existing systems and staff, integrating simple, practical, play-based activities into pre-primary structures.
Radio programming, providing practical parenting tools to millions of rural parents weekly in local languages.
In Ghana and Uganda, the programme reaches 138,000 parents and 314,000 children weekly across 3,800+ communities, and radio guidance reaches 2.6 million parents in 24 languages. Independent evaluations show children make gains equivalent to an extra year of schooling, while parents demonstrate significantly improved knowledge, confidence, and home-based practices.
We are an award-winning, bold, fast-moving organisation of around 100 people working across the UK, Ghana, Uganda and expanding to new geographies. Our ambition is big: to lead a paradigm shift and make parent-powered ECD the norm.
To find out more about our programme, please visit www.livelyminds.org.