- For a parenting program to be effective, it must reflect the cultural context, experiences, and daily lives of participating families.
- With IDB support, Panama adapted Cuidarte, an evidence-based parenting and child development program for Guna, Emberá, and Ngäbe communities.
- Indigenous professionals and community members helped adapt the program’s activities, illustrations, and materials while preserving its pedagogical objectives.
In the Emberá-Wounaan Comarca, in Panama’s Darién rainforest, a group of mothers and facilitators reviewed one of the activities proposed as part of “Cuidarte,” a child development program implemented by Panama’s Ministry of Social Development. The activity involved a three-year-old child pretending to serve tea to a visitor, stimulating language and symbolic play. Then one of the facilitators asked a critical question: “Who drinks tea here?”
The answer was unanimous: no one.
Then came a second question: “And how do people in the community welcome visitors for tea?”
That scenario was unfamiliar as well. It became clear that both the beverage and the situation reflected a reality that was foreign to Emberá families. To preserve the activity’s pedagogical purpose, it needed to be culturally adapted: instead of pretending to “welcome visitors for tea,” children were invited to pretend to prepare food and share familiar daily tasks. The pedagogical objective remained intact; what changed was the cultural setting that gave the activity meaning.
“Cuidarte” is an adaptation of Reach Up and Learn, a parenting and early stimulation intervention originally developed in Jamaica and widely recognized for its strong evidence base. With support from the IDB, the program aims to reach children up to age four in rural and hard-to-reach areas in Guna, Emberá, and Ngäbe communities, while ensuring quality.
Through “Cuidarte,” an Indigenous facilitator makes weekly visits to families and provides them with tools to promote their children’s cognitive, socioemotional, and language development. Activities are structured by age and use simple, low-cost materials.
However, bringing an evidence-based program to culturally diverse settings poses a challenge: How can the program maintain fidelity to the original model while ensuring that the activities are relevant to families in each community?
Evidence indicates that when families identify with a program’s materials, they participate more consistently, increasing the likelihood of better outcomes. We also know that learning occurs when new information connects with existing cognitive structures, including prior knowledge, experiences, language, beliefs, and conceptual frameworks. Various studies show that culture is one of the foundations on which learning is built.
For this reason, a team of Indigenous professionals from each community was assembled to lead qualitative research in their respective territories. Through interviews and focus groups with 185 mothers, fathers, local authorities, community leaders, and Indigenous facilitators, the team explored essential aspects of daily life, including:
- children’s daily routines,
- parenting practices and values,
- the identity of the primary caregivers,
- eating, sleeping, playing, and bathing practices,
- the spaces where family life takes place.
In addition to gathering information from the communities, these experts worked with the technical team to review the program materials, including the curriculum guide, illustrations, and toy manual, to identify which elements needed to be changed and why.
They identified important differences. The original program's characters had physical features, skin tones, hairstyles, and clothing that differed greatly from those of Guna, Emberá, and Ngäbe families. The homes depicted included beds, bathtubs, and urban kitchens. In many Indigenous communities, however, children sleep in hammocks or on sleeping mats, bathe in rivers, and live and play in open spaces. Instead of cars, many families travel on foot or by canoe, dugout canoe, or boat. Bowls and traditional calabash vessels are often more common than plates.
The cultural adaptation of “Cuidarte” is the step preceding a decisive phase: implementing the program in the participating territories. It is during this stage that the work completed, from active listening to redesigning content, will translate into improved parenting practices.
As part of this process, the IDB will support implementation and evaluate the program’s effects on child development and the quality of the home environment in one of the communities. The evidence generated will help refine and strengthen “Cuidarte” in Panama while also providing valuable lessons on how to deliver evidence-based programs effectively, appropriately, and sustainably in culturally diverse contexts.