News - July 2003
New opportunities in Lithuania
Zippy's Friends has been so successful in Lithuania that extra funding is now being sought to expand it nationwide.
The programme, which is run in kindergartens and primary schools and teaches six and seven year old children how to cope with difficulties, has been a runaway success. Classes for the 2002/03 programme have just finished, with 5,158 children taking part and 416 teachers being trained -160 per cent more than in the previous year. The response from teachers, parents and children has been enthusiastic.
Vaiko Labui, the agency that runs Zippy's Friends in Lithuania, has already enrolled more than 6,500 children in the programme for 2003/04, but director Aurelija Okunauskiene reckons the number could be even higher.
'If we had enough money, we could be helping children in nine of Lithuania's ten counties within two years,' she said.
All the costs of Zippy's Friends in Lithuania have been covered by GlaxoSmithKline. The company paid for the programme to be developed and evaluated, and enabled the number of children taking part to shoot up from 300 in 2001 to more than 5,000 this year. Its office in Vilnius has helped to publicise the programme, and the company will continue to support Zippy's Friends next year.
But now the search is on for new sponsors to help with the costs of expansion.
Partnership for Children Director Chris Bale said: 'GlaxoSmithKline's role has been to invest in the development of the programme, creating something from nothing, and we've always known that other funders would need to help with its expansion.'
'Because of GSK's past investment, Zippy's Friends is now tremendous value for money. In Lithuania, the cost works out at less than £7 (US$11) per child. That's not much to teach a seven-year-old child skills that will last a lifetime, and we hope that other sponsors will seize this opportunity to help.'
Vaiko Labui, the agency that runs Zippy's Friends in Lithuania, is trying to raise money domestically, but finds it hard to compete with much larger agencies. It is unrealistic to expect kindergartens or families to pay for the programme, although teachers do pay a small amount towards the cost of their special training to run Zippy's Friends . Many of the kindergartens in the programme are in poor rural areas, and about one third cater for children who have been fostered or who have disabilities.
Extensive evaluation of the programme in Lithuania has shown that children who take part expand their range of coping and social skills and show improvements in assertiveness, co-operation, empathy and self control. These improvements are maintained one year on. Another study showed that, compared to a control group, children who join the programme cope more successfully with the transition from kindergarten to primary school.