Representatives From Rwandan Preschool to Offer Public Lecture

The Early Educators Club at Pennsylvania College of Technology will host a lecture by the education coordinator of a preschool for low-income children in Rwanda.

Janet Brown, who helped establish the Cyakabiri School for Young Children in April, will offer a talk that is open to the public at 7 p.m. Nov. 21 in the college's Thompson Professional Development Center.

The school is part of the Urukundo Home for Children in Muhanga, South Province, Rwanda. Urukundo was founded six years ago by Arlene Brown, a missionary from Williamsport, and is home to 45 orphaned and abandoned children, ranging in age from 2 weeks to 18 years. It is funded by the U.S. nonprofit organization Hope Made Real.

Cyakabiri School enrolls 40 low-income children, eight from Urukundo and 32 others from the village. The school is based on the principle of art as a way of learning, with an emphasis on Rwandan culture.

Janet Brown is editor of Dimensions of Early Childhood, the quarterly journal of the Southern Early Childhood Association. She retired from Crayola and worked as a consultant in early childhood education for 20 years after serving as director of publications for the National Association for the Education of Young Children. She is a former child-care director.

She will be joined by Louisa Batamaliza, one of the teachers at Cyakabiri School for Young Children, who will provide music during the event. The two will spend the day visiting the Children's Learning Center at Penn College, which serves students and employees whose children need high-quality, on-campus care and education while their parents attend classes or work.

The center, which is accredited by the NAEYC and holds a "four-star" rating through Keystone Stars, cares for children between the ages of 18 months and 5 years. It also serves as a learning facility for Penn College students enrolled in the early childhood education major.

The Children's Learning Center is among several early-learning facilities across the United States that Batamaliza and Janet Brown will visit as Batamaliza gains experience in what is, for Rwanda, a different way of preparing children for the future. To learn more about the Urukundo Home for Children and the Cyakabiri School for Young Children, visit on the Web .

To learn more about early childhood education and other academic programs offered by the School of Integrated Studies at Penn College, call 570-327-4521 or visit online .

For more about Penn College, visit on the Web , email or call toll-free 800-367-9222.