Early Years Foundation

The Foundation for Early Years project aims to bring together parents, children and qualified adults to provide the best early childhood education in a scientifically prepared environment.

WHY?

The early years are a crucial period in which actions can significantly reduce social inequalities. Giving parents and other primary care providers the information and resources they need to promote their children's development will ensure that all children, regardless of their socioeconomic status, have a head start.
fair and equitable life. Equipping parents and adults around children with knowledge about early childhood development allows them to make decisions that will have a beneficial impact on their children's development. Parents can play a more active role in their children's education and well-being if they develop a solid foundation of knowledge.

GOAL
Empower parents and caregivers to create environments that promote children's autonomy, curiosity and autonomous learning from an early age. Here are some ways we will address this question:
Demonstrations of space configurations that encourage independence and learning, including furniture arrangement, choice of materials and organization of the environment.
Montessori guides trained by the Association Montessori Internationale Online - In partnership with teachers specialized in Montessori pedagogy at Atelier Montessori, we will develop online guides that will help parents create environments
prepared in their homes.
Involve Children in Design: Recognizing the importance of children's participation in the design process, we will hold special workshops where parents and children can work together to create spaces that encourage autonomy and learning. This encourages co-creation and shared responsibility for the environment.

CHALLENGES
Currently, Atelier Montessori faces certain challenges:
Expensive human resources (Example: In Portugal, there is a shortage of teachers and schools start the school year with incomplete teams. Public education services are precarious and often lack quality.)

Very high demand - Example: Many families from foreign countries living in Portugal (something that has seen a huge increase) and local families are desperately in need of places for their children. (We receive all
weeks an average of 6 new contacts).

The local community is very sensitive to rising prices due to Portugal's economic development (in just one year, between June 2023 and June 2022, the interest rate on new housing loans almost tripled, rising from 1.47% ago one year to 4.25% currently). In 2023, inflation stands at 5.5%.

Ignorance prevails about the importance of the first years of a child's life and development. The Portuguese educational panorama is made up of institutions that do not update their offers in accordance with new developments in neuroscience. On the other hand, social projects with little investment in professional training offer inferior alternatives. Families of all socioeconomic levels have little access to a solid knowledge base.

PROJECT'S GOAL

We need to reach a certain scale that allows us to respond to all of our future and current graduates (and families) at reasonable prices.
Partnering with other institutions or having resources to open new spaces and organize new events will increase our presence. We believe that, in line with our mission, we must create opportunities to make knowledge
accessible to families (we have many nationalities) and take advantage of multiculturalism.

The ultimate goal of the Early Years Foundation project is to inspire a movement of informed parents, grandparents and teachers who value the well-being and healthy development of children. The initiative hopes to have a lasting effect on families, communities and society at large by cultivating a friendly environment and offering useful tools.

About the author

Atelier Montessori Lda works exclusively in the field of education. It currently has the São Lourenço Montessori school (a department that works with pre-school and primary school children) and the Atelier Montessori, an educational center that organizes training sessions for families (workshops) and teachers. In this second space, we have a Montessori work group service, serving children aged 18 to 36 months.

The company has an administrator who has the support of two people responsible for the operational side (secretariat). For pedagogical advice, the company also has the support of teachers at various levels of education, from kindergarten to primary education, specialized in Montessori scientific pedagogy.

The funds that allow the Atelier Montessori project to survive are based on monthly fees paid by parents and partly on income from workshops or small-scale activities organized for external clients. Until now, only private capital (from the founding family) has been invested to sustain commercial activity, without ever resorting to bank financing.

Budget and due dates

We hope to raise by March 2024: €5,000

The fund will be used to expand Atelier Montessori's current space in the Lisbon area.

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