Lively Minds

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Lively Minds Lively Minds is working to get pre-school children in rural Ghana and Uganda school-ready.

Working through government we build the skills and confidence of rural parents to run educational Play Schemes and provide nurturing care at home. We work in partnership with local governments to set up community-run play schemes and Parenting Courses. The courses empower parents and communities to change their children’s lives, and their own, for the better. Through the play schemes and care at home, children learn through play and parents are encouraged to provide good hygiene and care to support their children's health and development.

Leadership can start with something as simple as a girl sharing a story, asking a question or helping her friends disco...
11/10/2026



Leadership can start with something as simple as a girl sharing a story, asking a question or helping her friends discover something new.

We are proud that the Lively Minds approach gives young children opportunities to build confidence, express their ideas, make choices and learn to lead through . Supporting and teachers provide these early experiences to your girls, helps them to build skills they can carry with them as they grow.

This International Day of the Girl Child, we’re excited to be part of the work to invest in girls from the very beginning and protecting their rights so they have equal chances to reach their full potential in life.

09/10/2026

Have you ever noticed how easily a child can count in English, but struggles to do the same in the language they speak at home?

It’s something we started hearing from :

“My child can now count in Dagbanli.”

“My child now knows colours in Lusoga.”

“My child can identify objects in our local language.”

At first, these might sound like small changes. But the more we heard them, the more we realised they were pointing to something bigger.

For many young children, the language they hear and use at home is the language they understand best. When learning happens in that language, children can participate more confidently, understand new ideas more easily, and connect what they are learning to their everyday lives.

This is also why ’s education policy supports mother tongue instruction in the early years, helping children build strong foundations for learning and comprehension.

Through the Lively Minds approach, learning doesn’t stop at the classroom door. , caregivers and community volunteers play an active role in helping children learn through and everyday activities, often using the languages children know best.

For families, that can mean seeing a child become more confident not only in counting or naming colours, but in using their own language to learn, communicate and make sense of the world around them.

In this video, Asana Alhassan shares how her children have become more fluent counting in Dagbanli.

Stories like Asana’s remind us that when children can learn in a language that is part of their everyday lives, learning can feel more familiar, more meaningful and more connected to home.

05/10/2026



In a pre-primary classroom, a simple game can help children practise, explore, take turns and build new skills all while having fun.

Victoria Korkor, a teacher at Nuaso Anglican KG in Lower Manya Krobo, Ghana, uses to make learning active and enjoyable for her pupils.

Victoria listens to the Lively Minds Together radio programme and brings ideas from it into her teaching, creating more opportunities for children to learn through .

This is what makes teachers so important to the Lively Minds approach. They help bring learning to life in the classroom and connect what children experience at school with the learning and that can continue at home with their .

For young children, play isn’t separate from learning. is how they learn.

This World Teachers’ Day, we’re celebrating Victoria and teachers everywhere who make learning active, playful and meaningful.

In July, our MEL Coordinator, Sena Goka, and Project Management Lead, Seth Ayariga, travelled to Region 5 North, The Gam...
28/09/2026

In July, our MEL Coordinator, Sena Goka, and Project Management Lead, Seth Ayariga, travelled to Region 5 North, The Gambia, to support activities for our 'Partnership with Parents in ECD' pilot and see how the work was being put into practice.

Sena supported endline MEL data collection through focus group discussions, interviews, home visits and observations. She also joined Parenting Sessions and saw putting what they learned into practice at home.

'Seeing the tools actually used in real hands, collecting real data, was different from anything I could have learned from a desk review.'

For Seth, who was Senior Content Developer at the time, the visit offered a chance to see how the pilot’s content and approaches were being used in classrooms. He observed teachers using play-based and discovery-based methods, alongside games, songs, dance and locally made teaching aids.

Reflecting on what he saw, Seth said:

'Overall, the pilot shows strong early signs of success: teachers are applying play-based and discovery-based methods in normal classroom lessons, and both teachers and parents describe a marked improvement in school-community relationships.'

Being in the communities also helped both Sena and Seth identify what can be strengthened for future implementation from how the content is used in classrooms to refinements to the MEL tools and programme content.

These visits provide both valuable data and learning, but also the real-life context for chidlren and their for our teams working at Lively Minds. This powers all of us to keep working so hard at what we do!

Here’s a quick recap from our session: The role of funders in scaling with government: what needs to change?The sessio...
25/09/2026

Here’s a quick recap from our session: The role of funders in scaling with government: what needs to change?

The session was hosted by Spring Impact and Lively Minds, bringing together panellists from Spring Impact, Lively Minds, TaRL Africa, African Center for Early Childhood Development , Grand Challenges Canada and The ELMA Philanthropies.

One question put to the panellists was:

“What is the biggest gap between what scale requires and what philanthropy rewards?”

The answer was strikingly similar across the panel: Time.

Scaling takes time. Often, much more time than funding cycles allow.

Alison Naftalin, our Founder & CEO, also challenged the idea that NGOs should always have a clear “exit strategy”.

Governments may continue to need support from NGOs to test new ideas, learn, adapt and innovate. NGOs can often move and adapt more quickly, while governments have to work across larger and more complex systems.

Building this kind of partnership takes time.

We will be sharing much more about the expert perspectives in the coming weeks, so watch this space.

The session ended with another important question from Liana Ghent:

“How can funders invest in national and regional advocacy networks that outlast any single programme?”

A question we’ll be thinking about for a while.

Let us know what you think about this question in the comments?

Lively Minds at the 100x Impact Accelerator Kick-off Week What an energising few days! Alison and Fayuda completed the ...
23/09/2026

Lively Minds at the 100x Impact Accelerator Kick-off Week

What an energising few days!

Alison and Fayuda completed the first in-person kick-off week of the 100x Impact Accelerator, joining an inspiring cohort of organisations working across early childhood development, health, education, conservation and more.

The week gave us space to step away from the day-to-day and think much bigger about what it really takes to scale impact.

For Lively Minds, some of the questions we’re taking away include:

How do we help governments become the long-term doers and payers, while ensuring quality is maintained?

How do we measure impact at scale, not simply reach?

What does the funding model need to look like as we move from pilots and innovation towards sustainable government-led delivery?

And perhaps most importantly:

How can we make parent-powered early childhood development a sustainable part of government systems, reaching millions of children with quality?

One of the most valuable parts of the week was learning across sectors. The generosity and openness of the cohort created a genuine “brain trust” challenging our assumptions and giving us new ways to think about problems that are often shared across very different contexts.

A huge thank you to the 100x team, IG Advisors, J-PAL and our brilliant cohort for the challenge, support and generosity.

We’re only at the beginning, but we’re excited about the next 16 weeks of learning, testing and turning big questions into action.

Here’s to thinking bigger about what’s possible for young children.

We’re heading to New York for ! From 21–24 September, Lively Minds will be joining conversations on what it takes to st...
18/09/2026

We’re heading to New York for !

From 21–24 September, Lively Minds will be joining conversations on what it takes to strengthen early learning and bring effective approaches to scale.

Our Founder & CEO, Alison Naftalin, and Advocacy Lead, Eleanor Sykes, will be there throughout the week. Do come and say hi!

Here’s where you can find us across our four key sessions.

See you in New York!

A quick reminder if you’ll be in New York next week!On 24 September, Grand Challenges Canada will host Beyond the Breakt...
16/09/2026

A quick reminder if you’ll be in New York next week!

On 24 September, Grand Challenges Canada will host Beyond the Breakthrough: What it Takes to Scale Early Childhood Development at .

Join our Founder & CEO, Alison Naftalin, alongside leaders and experts including aeioTU's Victoria Arciniegas Gómez and Sebastian Osorio Hoyos from Instiglio, as they share ideas and experiences on what it takes to move promising solutions beyond the breakthrough and towards reaching more children and families.

📍 Picasso Room, Jay Suites
🕝 2:30 – 4:00pm EDT

If you’re around, come join the conversation.

There’s still time to register. Find the link in the comments.

On 24 September, we’ll join aeioTU, Instiglio and others in New York for a session hosted by Grand Challenges Canada to ...
11/09/2026

On 24 September, we’ll join aeioTU, Instiglio and others in New York for a session hosted by Grand Challenges Canada to explore an interesting discussion on: Beyond the Breakthrough: What it Takes to Scale Early Childhood Development.

Moderated by champion Joan Lombardi, the conversation will look at what we’ve learned from 15 years of investing in early childhood innovation - what worked, what didn’t, and what it will take to make effective solutions accessible to more children and families.

At Lively Minds, we’ve experienced this journey first-hand. We’ve seen that
promising ideas can become part of how governments deliver early childhood
services but reaching millions of children requires more than a good
programme. It takes evidence, government ownership, investment and the right
conditions to reach as many parents and their chlldren as possible.

Join us in New York to explore what it really takes to scale early childhood development. Registration link in the comments

📍 Picasso Room, Jay Suites New York | 24 September 2026
🕝 2:30–4:00pm EDT

“How was your day?”“What do you think will happen next in the story?”“What do you see in this picture?”These might soun...
08/09/2026



“How was your day?”

“What do you think will happen next in the story?”

“What do you see in this picture?”

These might sound like ordinary questions. But for a young child, they’re opportunities to listen, think, learn new words and express themselves.

And this is the kind of learning that can happen anywhere, while playing, telling stories, singing songs or simply talking together. Literacy isn’t only about reading a book. It starts with the everyday moments.

Through our work with parents and governments, we support families to make the most of these everyday moments, helping feel confident in their role as their children’s first teachers.

Because building the foundations for literacy doesn’t always require a classroom. Sometimes, it starts with a conversation.

Happy International Literacy Day!

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Lively Minds
Tamale

Opening Hours

Monday 09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00
Friday 09:00 - 17:00

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