Mr. Kamitani's speech

Chief advisor of ECD-JICA Project

We are the team of the Early Childhood Development Quality Improvement Project, and I am Tetsuo Kamitani, the Chief advisor of the project, which is a collaboration between the Japanese International Cooperation Agency "JICA" and the Ministry of Social Solidarity. We work together to reach the development of the Egyptian child because we are fully convinced that the future of the country is in the hands of the new generation, so we work on its development to be the reason for the advancement of the country as a whole. We are working on developing existing nurseries, among the nurseries of NGOs, in "Qalyubia, Kafr El-Sheikh, Suez, Ismailia and Port Said", to be a model that represents Japanese nurseries and a place to be followed in the upbringing and development of children.

The idea for the booklet was born when the project supplied picture books to nurseries; Because of its belief in the importance of reading to stimulate the child’s mind, imagination, and creativity, then the team thought of making that guidebook to be a summary of those books, to make it easier for nursery facilitators, as well as for mothers to choose books based on the goal of the story to read to their children. And we want to popularize the importance of reading and guide all those in charge of educating children to the preferred books to read, so we decided to publish this booklet.

In Japan, facilitators at the nursery school read picture books daily, and parents are encouraged to read to their children, especially before bed. Meetings are also organized in public libraries in the presence of parents and children, in which a writer or writer from the book of picture books explains the importance of reading and the reason behind writing those books.