Home Instruction for Parents of Pre-School Youngsters in South Africa supports vulnerable families mobilise their own strengths to prepare their pre-schoolers for formal education.

Our approach builds resilience within the family to overcome psycho-social poverty.

Our educational programme focuses on home-visits and group work, and our social support focuses on peer-counselling by Home Visitors. Home-Visitors regularly link vulnerable families grappling with poverty risks to organisations that empower them to overcome these challenges.

Our families come from the under-employed, the internally displaced, undocumented migrants and refugees or asylum seekers; families that are socially excluded through the stigma of teen pregnancy, ethnic prejudice and other forms of social exclusion. Some families have been ravaged by HIV infection and related social stigma, particularly child-headed households. We believe that activating cultural, social, emotional and community capital has the ability to transform not only social circumstances but also psychological  mindsets that keep us from achieving our best potential.

Home Instruction for Parents of Pre-school Youngsters (HIPPY) is an international network operating in eleven countries: Argentina, Austria, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Denmark and the USA.