We work to address the lack of quality childcare that marginalized communities face in Asia’s rapidly developing countries. We train the caregivers in a young child's life and empower them to provide quality responsive, nurturing care and early education in safe, age-appropriate environments so that the children in their care can explore, learn, play, develop and thrive.
It is now widely understood that the early years, when the brain is developing most rapidly, determine much about a person’s future. Yet healthy development only happens when a child receives nurturing, one-on-one care: responsive care.
Early Childhood Development (ECD) lays the foundation for a child’s physical, emotional, and intellectual well-being and is a strong predictor of long-term human development. Recent evidence and developments in the ECD landscape have shown that children need access to comprehensive programs and services between the ages of 0 and 6 years that address health and developmental needs (including early education) to support them to have the best start in life.
However, over 350 million children under primary school age in low- and middle-income countries lack access to quality childcare, which also places a significant burden on women. Many women are often forced to choose between leaving their young children in substandard care settings while working or staying home to care for their children – thus perpetuating the intergenerational cycle of poverty.
Over the last 26 years, OneSky has developed an evidence-based blended learning approach to train adult caregivers — whether child welfare institution workers, independent childcare providers or parents — in a vulnerable child's life and enable them to provide nurturing, responsive care and quality ECCE in low-resourced settings.
The OneSky curriculum is inspired by the Reggio Emilia principles of child-centered learning, globally informed by the scientific evidence base on early childhood development. It is locally adapted to serve the specific needs of young children and their caregivers (with varying literacy levels) in low-resourced contexts. Core to the curriculum is establishing a responsive relationship between the caregiver and child, promoting age-appropriate communication, creating safe and nurturing early learning environments, and encouraging play and discovery to stimulate healthy cognitive, language, physical, and social-emotional development.
We also believe that technology can bridge gaps caused by inequality. As such, we have designed our training to be delivered through a blended learning approach — combining classroom sessions and in-person mentoring, with online learning through our digital platform, 1BigFamily.
This provides caregivers with a wide range of resources to enhance their skills, broaden their knowledge, and build confidence in learning through technology, giving them greater control over their professional development and careers.
OneSky was founded in 1998 to improve the lives of children in China’s welfare institutions. In 2011, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs and OneSky launched a groundbreaking partnership to train every child welfare worker in the country. Recognizing that the needs of young children are universal, OneSky expanded programs to train caregivers of children in low-resource settings across Asia — from childcare providers in Vietnam's industrial zones to homes and kindergartens in Mongolia's urban informal settlements.
In Vietnam, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) invited OneSky to scale its independent childcare provider training program nationally. In partnership with the MOET, OneSky’s Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) experts collaborated with national ECCE specialists, including government officials and university researchers, to create Guidelines for Implementing the Early Childhood Education Program for Independent Childcare Centers (ICCs). After extensive review and input, national ECCE guidelines were approved in 2024 and will guide ICCs nationwide in delivering standardized, high-quality early childhood education.
In Mongolia, we have piloted Family Skills Training in Ulaanbaatar’s ger districts. We are developing an independent childcare provider model for these communities and working with the government to scale our reach and impact across the country.
To date, we have trained 116,502 caregivers to transform the lives of 394,390 children.
OneSky has developed a theory of change, which visualizes our path to scale. It is a road map, a living tool that explains how we intend to achieve impact for the children. We support governments in Asia as they strive to improve the quality of early childhood care and education for all young children.
Our work always begins with an invitation from the local community to pilot a program. It then moves through a demonstration and refinement stage, with the ultimate goal of progressing toward government adoption and transformed systems of care.
In Vietnam we have expanded our training to include an Extended Training program for independent childcare providers who have graduated from our Core Training program. This builds on the knowledge gained in Core training, with supplementary modules on nutrition, first aid, and lessons on teaching specialist subject matter such as science, math, and literacy.
We are also further developing our online learning platform (1BigFamily) to improve and expand digital learning for graduates of our training programs. Through competitions, interactive activities, video training and other tools, we aim to foster a lifelong commitment to professional development, driving significant improvement in caregiver skills and knowledge and enhanced child development outcomes.
OneSky is committed to systemic change. Wherever our programs are based, our goal is always to work in partnership with the local community and government (at all levels) to transform the national standard of ECCE for the vulnerable children, families and caregivers we serve.
First, OneSky ensures that our early childhood care and education programs align with the government's priorities. Then, we work closely with local stakeholders to understand the need, the ECCE landscape, and how we can best add value. We tailor our approach to the local context, pilot it, then develop and refine our programs — all while increasing the capacity of our in-country teams to establish expertise on the ground to expand our work. We identify local partners and networks to help us scale; we collaborate with local and national governments to support the uptake and widespread expansion of our programs. Whether the context is an independent childcare center, an orphanage or a family skills training program, our goal is always systemic change and government adoption of our approach to achieve maximum impact and long-term sustainability.
Please contact us to learn more and partner with us.
