Kenya has a long history of preschool provision along with a supportive policy framework from its independence. This preschool provision, originally known as ECCE – Early Childhood Care and Education, was provided by women for whom this was a source of livelihoods, income, and social standing in their communities, with provisions offered to the broad range of social, economic, cultural, and geographicgroups. In both policy and provision, early childhood services were an important factor of local development building preschool provision in the spirit of "Harambee" meaning self-help as a means to bottom-up nation building. From independence to the 1970s, during its first decade, this provision enabled local communities to determine and define their own needs and to create programmes to address their needs.