Knowledge Channel Foundation Inc. (KCFI) strengthens its advocacy on boosting early childhood development education among Filipino parents and kids by entering a partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and receiving a High Embassy Fund (HEF) Grant from New Zealand.

Knowledge Channel will distribute on-air and online video lessons of “My TV School,” co-developed by USAID and RTI International with the Department of Education for the “Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines (ABC+)” project. It aims to hone K-3 students’ interest and mastery of the four macro literacy skills in English – listening, reading, speaking, and writing.

“We thank the Knowledge Channel Foundation, Inc. for taking interest in our initiative to help further promote learning and ensure access to education, particularly for the most vulnerable and marginalized children in the country. We, at USAID, believe that engaging with private foundations like Knowledge Channel Foundation, Inc. can help improve and strengthen the quality of education and further encourage investments in the education sector,” said USAID acting mission director Rebekah Eubanks.

Meanwhile, through the New Zealand HEF Grant, KCFI will be able to train child development workers, teachers, care providers, and parents of children 3 to 4.11 years old from 11 barangays in Burgos, Ilocos Norte through the “Learning Effectively through Enhanced and Evidence-based Pedagogies (LEEP)” project. Each barangay will also receive a Knowledge Channel Portable Media Library for early childhood development (KC PML-ECD), containing offline video lessons and resources.

“We recognize that this partner (KCFI) is passionate about doing something in the community and we also recognize that this partner has a track record, capability or capacity. Those are probably the three (3) big things that we look at when we hope to partner with a community,” shared New Zealand Ambassador to the Philippines, Peter Kell.

KCFI also continues its partnership with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) to co-produce 50 new episodes of “Wikaharian,” an animated series in Filipino that aims to help young learners, specifically Grade 2 students, improve their foundational skills in reading.

“We hope that by bringing these video lessons to more audiences all over the country, we will be making a meaningful contribution to the efforts of schools, teachers, and parents all over the country who are working hard to enrich the learning of their students and children,” said KCFI president and executive director Rina Lopez.

For more information on KCFI, visit www.knowledgechannel.org or follow @kchonline on Twitter and @knowledgechannel on Facebook.