Ethiopian Center for Development (ECD) Inaugurates Newly Constructed Classrooms at Abune Basilios Preprimary School with Support from Children in cross fire (CiC)

The Ethiopian Center for Development (ECD) is a women-led non-governmental organization committed towards supporting economic and socio-cultural development in Ethiopia. As part of its commitment to ensuring access to quality preprimary education, ECD, in collaboration with Children in Crossfire (CiC) and community resource mobilization efforts has constructed a three-block classroom at Abune Basilios Public Preprimary and Primary School, located near the landfill popularly known as Qoshe which effectively remedied the shift system put in place to deal with the ever-growing student population. The school, with over 7000 students, used to implement a shift system where pre-primary students would attend three out of five days whilst another group will attend two days per week to accommodate the burgeoning student population at their schools. This system posed significant challenges for parents who depend on informal and seasonal livelihood options to support their family whilst also endangering the nutrition needs of their children which would have been addressed by the school feeding program. Similar constructions are scheduled for two other public preprimary schools i.e. Abado and Gode Preprimary Schools with support from CiC and community resource mobilization efforts. The classrooms were inaugurated on February 20, 2026 in the presence of officials from the Addis Ababa Education Bureau and Kolfe Keranyo Subcity Education Bureau. This intervention was part of the Integrated School Readiness Program implemented with CiC to transform the landscape of early childhood learning in Addis Ababa through a quality, equitable and scalable early childhood learning model across 9 schools, targeting about 13,700 students. This project implements a Dual-Generation Approach focusing on six core outcomes which are based on the UNICEF Nurturing Care Framework.