In bulletin 4 we examine the views of early childhood staff in public, private and blended creches (‘conveniadas’) about their work, COVID, and their relations with the city of Rio. COVID caused the creches to close and staff struggled to figure out ways to maintain contact with children and families and to provide educational materials. Some staff also acted as point people to provide families with donated food as the families struggled with COVID related unemployment. The project definition of inclusion extends to early education resources being available for young children to be included into and this bulletin highlights the general shortage of creche slots in our target community of Rocinha, the financial challenges the centers had before COVID and how COVID magnified those difficulties. Our respondents also pointed out the limitations of trying to maintain online educational contact with families in a low-income community where computer devices and internet connections are very inadequate and still too expensive for some families.
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