The Omama Program
The first 1000 days have a major impact on our lives. Omamas – women from poor communities, teach mothers how to properly develop their children from birth. In this way, they will get the foundations on which they can build later in kindergarten and school.
How does it work?
1. What is the problem?
Thousands of children living in generational poverty have had their starting line shifted from birth. Challenging conditions and chronic stress negatively affect their healthy development.
2. How do we solve it?
Omamas – Romani women – visit families with the youngest children and during regular stimulating lessons teach parents how to prepare their children to successfully cope with school.
3. Where are we going?
We work to ensure that every child born into poverty has early childhood support in developing their potential. So that he grows into a person capable of applying himself well in life.
They said about us
I perceive the substantial benefit of the Omama program. The children that Omama Ivetka took care of are more fearless and used to the fact that someone has already done something similar with them… Every time I need to show something to the children, the children who were with Ivetka are the first to catch on. They pull others.
Omám
Mentoriek
Komunít
Detí vo veku od 0-4 roky
Where we operate
We started the Omama program in three poor communities. We currently operate in 31 communities.
In order to be able to maintain the project in them for the long term and to be able to spread it to other communities, we are asking for your support. We strive for a high social return on the project, meaning we keep costs low and maximize the impact. You too can be part of the change. With the support of the state, we want to spread the proven project to as many poor communities as possible.
Results of the Omama program
We measure the impact of the Omama program in cooperation with the University of Oxford. We compare the neurodevelopment of 2-year-old children in our program with the results in control samples of children from settlements outside the Omama program and children from the majority.
The results will help us to further improve our work. They will provide evidence and arguments for pushing the program into the system.
Omama in your village
We always select new omamas in the spring of a given calendar year so that they can complete training with experts at the beginning of the summer. Subsequently, they will start approaching families with the youngest children who would like to participate in the program.
