Little Doves Improves Early Childhood Education in Tanzania
Little Doves Day Care Centre was founded in February 2023 in Kigamboni, Tanzania, by Ritta Kimaro and Matinde Joseph Mwita to offer working families a safe and dependable place where their children could learn, play, and be cared for while they worked.
Ritta and Matinde invested their personal savings, starting with two learners aged two and five.
“Seeing how difficult it was for working families to access reliable childcare, we wanted to create a nurturing and inclusive learning environment where children could grow through both play-based and academic learning,” Principal Matinde recalls.
Two months after the school's inception, the leadership was poised to implement measures to help it grow, with their priorities set on staff training, financial management, parent-teacher engagement, and inclusion, all of which made it clear that such growth required stronger structures and greater commitment.
“A referral from a neighboring school to the Opportunity International EduFinance’s EduQuality Program opened the door to a new phase of learning and gave us access to targeted support that helped turn our vision into stronger daily practice,” she adds.
On April 4, 2023, Little Doves joined Opportunity EduFinance’s EduQuality Program through its Early Childhood Care and Education component, a tailored package of support designed for schools and daycare centres that offer early childhood care and education (ECCE). This component provides practical tools and professional development to help providers assess their needs, strengthen leadership, improve teaching practice, and build a stronger foundation for quality early learning.
For Little Doves, the support began with the Pathways to Excellence, which helped the school self-assess the quality of education and identify clear priorities for improvement. The guide equips school leaders with tools to track progress across 18 key areas and strengthen school culture, management, and teaching and learning, creating conditions for more children to learn and thrive.
“The school self-assessment informed our School Development Plan aligned with our needs, resources, and timeline, and with hopes of strengthening the school’s human resources, promoting inclusion, and deepening engagement with parents, guardians, and the wider community,” Matinde recounts.
Alongside this planning process, the School Leadership Professional Development component gave the founders space to reflect on their management practices and learn from peers within their Cluster. Through regular interaction with other school leaders and guidance from an Education Specialist, Matinde says she gained practical ideas for staff coaching, teamwork, communication, and more structured school operations.
“Schools that might once have been seen as competitors became partners in learning,” Matinde explains, reflecting how the cluster model opened a more collaborative way of working and helped the school translate new ideas into daily practice.
A notable improvement at Little Doves, influenced by the EduQuality Program, was the introduction of a more standardized fee-collection process. This made it easier for parents to pay on time and helped the school manage its limited resources more responsibly. “It helped us engage parents and the wider community more intentionally,” Matinde says. Through graduation ceremonies, home visits, parent meetings, WhatsApp groups, and SMS updates, Little Doves continues to strengthen its systems and visibility, deepen its relationships with parents, and keep them better informed about their children’s welfare.
Today, Little Doves has grown from two learners to 48 learners and now employs five teachers. Its story is still unfolding, but its progress shows how timely support, committed leadership, and community trust can help a young school build stronger systems and expand access to quality early childhood education.