CHILDREN at a nursery in St Albans are the first to take part in a new project linking African nurseries with those in the rest of the world.

Charity Edirisa UK supports community projects in Uganda and has built and runs two nursery schools including the Bufaka Nursery which the Albany Montessori Nursery in Hatfield Road has now teamed up with.

Founder of Edirisa, Sheila Windridge, is a long time friend of Bonnie Singh who has been at the forefront of a project to set up a free Montessori primary school in St Albans. Together, they came up with the idea of creating a Circle of Friends whereby nurseries from around the world form links with those set up by Edirisa in Africa to teach the children about diversity, cultures and different ways of life.

Sheila has recently flown to Uganda to deliver to the Bufaka nursery toys and books donated by the children at the Albany Montessori nursery along with a scrapbook containing artwork and photos.

She said: “Linking offers opportunities to develop friendships, share ideas and resources and we believe that introducing the children to each other at this early stage of cognitive development will help them to grow up with a better understanding of the world they live in, to appreciate the differences between the races and have a more tolerant attitude towards each other.”

Bonnie said: “I believe that whatever a child learns in the very early learning stages will remain with them, hence it is our duty to teach our children of the concept of sharing and giving and to learn of how people from different parts of the world live.

“Hopefully these children will grow up to make further changes to help in developing countries, and to one day help to eradicate world poverty

“We are in the process of building communications between nurseries around the world to do the same.”

For more information about Edirisa’s work visit www.edirisa.org.uk and to find out more about the Albany Montessori nursery visit www.albany-montessori.co.uk where there is also a link to the website of the primary school project.