New day care and pre-school coming soon

By the mid to end of February this year, Barbadian parents would soon have a new option in Barbados to send their children for day care services and to pre-school.

In an interview with The Barbados Advocate, Pastor and Co-Founder of Restoration Ministries International, Senator David Durant, said that it would be called Hephzibah Day Care and Pre-school – Hephzibah being a Hebrew word which translates to ‘The Lord delights in you’ in English – and it would be in a neighbouring house which the church purchased in December of last year. They will soon embark on making the necessary renovations inside the building to get it up to the standards that have been approved by the Child Care Board (CCB).

Representatives from the CCB have already visited the place and given their instructions as to what adjustments Restoration Ministries would need to make in order to get it up to par, and they have also been granted permission from the Town and Country Planning Department to go ahead with these adjustments.

“We will do some renovations inside for the daycare according to the Child Care Board standards. So we are going to start doing the adjustments and then we are going to start taking the children. They (CCB officials) came and visited it. They came about three times and we also have permission from Town and Country Planning.”

It would cater to 55 children from three months to four and a half years old, and would be a full-time facility that also offers pre-hours and after hours day care service for those parents who may have to drop their infants in earlier or pick them up late as a result of their work schedule.

This day care and pre-school would be one with a difference, however, because the children in the pre-school would not just learn the curriculum set out for that age group by the Ministry of Education, but they would also be exposed to the Word of God on a regular basis, the Pastor stated.

“Yes, apart from the Ministry of Education curriculum, we would also be sharing the Word of the Lord, because the idea is that when these children leave here and go to primary school, we want them to be well-rounded young people, you know – mannerly, respectful, brilliant, also having a passion and motivation for excellence.

“We want the teachers to be impressed with their behaviour, attitudes (and) mannerisms. We want them to be different, and of course, with the educational curriculum plus our spiritual value system being relayed to them, it would help to balance them.”

They are currently interviewing staff for the institution, and registration forms are now available at the church office for interested parents, he said.