The five target communities–Chahiyili, Gushei, Moya, Kparigulanyili and Zali communities–implementing the SIHELI model are clustered rural communities, located in Ghana’s northern region, particularly the Nanton district. These communities are largely occupied by the Dagomba tribe, with the presence of other ethnic groups such as the Kokombas and the Fulbes/Fulanis. With an estimated population of 2,100 (with an average of 420 residents), their major occupation is farming (e.g., shea butter, maize, millet) and animal rearing (e.g., goats, sheep, cattle, guinea fowl). Patriarchy norms are predominant in these communities–men who mainly occupy traditional and community leadership roles make decisions that affects the socioeconomic lives of the household including children’s education. This limits women’s ability to make decision’s concerning children’s education and participation in development programmes.

The selected communities are multidimensionally poor, lacking basic social amenities such as health, water, and education (Ghana Statistical Service, 2023). Due to the absence of formal education infrastructure and opportunities, children travel about 3–4 kilometres to schools in the nearest communities, particularly younger children, and there are no trained teachers. There are two pre-schools (KGs) across the Nanton district and none in the selected communities (Naton District Assembly, 2024). This means that young children either remain at home under informal care arrangements (cared for family relations or older siblings) that exposes them to risks–accidents and injuries–or infrequently attend school because they are not able to travel longer distances daily especially in raining seasons and due to risks, they are exposed to walking longer distance to school. This translates into poor educational attainment across the communities especially at the early childhood level. Female children and children with disabilities are the most marginalised in terms of education access and schooling. NGOs (Lively Minds and School for Life) in efforts to address educational gaps in these communities, have implemented non-formal interventions. Lively Minds implements a play-based approach to learning at the early childhood level where trained parents adopt and lead the play-based learning in formal schools. School for Life implements the complementary basic education (CBE) programme for out of school children aged 8-15 years, with lessons facilitated by trained female and male community members. How ever, there are no (in)formal education interventions for children at the early childhood level.