Grandmothers: A Learning Institution - Basic Education and Policy ...

Many health and development workersview grandmothers as a negative force,due to some of their “traditional practices”and “traditional remedies,” and prefer tointeract with younger women, and sometimestheir husbands.CHILD HYGIENEIn all cultures where grandmothers play arole in child-care they are involved inteaching young children about socio-culturalnorms and practices related to defecationand personal hygiene, such as handwashingafter defecation and before eating.Based on an internet search and an interviewwith an environmental health specialist(Kleinau 2004), it was not possible toidentify any community programs that haveexplicitly involved grandmothers in promotingoptimal hygiene practices.HIV/AIDSA major constraint identified by grandmothersand grandfathers is their exclusionfrom HIV/AIDS awareness activitiesthat focus almost exclusively on youngpeople. In spite of their greatly increasedchild-care responsibilities in high HIV/AIDSprevalence areas, there are few programsthat are providing direct psycho-social,financial, or material support to these elderfamily members to help meet theirincreased child-care responsibilities.SEVERAL FACTORS CONTRIBUTETO THE LIMITED EXCLUSION OFGRANDMOTHERS’ IN CHILDDEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS.Often in community child developmentprograms that focus on younger womenthere are a few grandmothers who participate.However, few programs have identifiedgrandmothers as priority communityactors and have explicitly and activelyinvolved them in community strategies.Several factors appear to contribute to thisfact. First, many development agenciesand staff have negative biases againstgrandmothers related to their “age,” “inabilityto learn” and “resistance to change.”Second, the models used as a basis fordesign of child development programs,borrowed from the west, tend to focus on“mothers,” and sometimes “parents,” whileignoring the significant role and influenceof elder household actors in non-westernsocieties.A FEW SUCCESSFULGRANDMOTHER-INCLUSIVECHILD DEVELOPMENTPROGRAMS DO EXIST.There are some examples of child developmentprograms that have explicitlyinvolved grandmothers. Although few innumber, these experiences illustrate howprograms can acknowledge grandmothers’role and past experience, actively involvethem, and in so doing strengthen theirknowledge and skills. In programs where agrandmother-inclusive approach has beenadopted, feedback from grandmothers,from other community members, and fromdevelopment staff has been very positiveand in most cases their involvementappears to have contributed to increasedprogram results.GRANDMOTHERS:THE LEARNING INSTITUTION41