Vredenburg Project – Funded by APD & the Emseni Trust
IESA & APD continued to collaborate throughout the 08/09 period on a project in Vredenburg, on the West Coast, to identify vulnerable and out-of-school children, investigating ways in which to support their access to the education system.
Seed-funded by APD and subsequently supported by a grant from the Emseni Trust, the project was undertaken in close co-operation with the WCED, and included a door-to-door survey, interviews with a wide range of service-providers in the area, ECD training and tapping into existing support structures in the community. The focus of the activities during this year centered strongly on gaining a deeper understanding of the reasons for learners dropping out of school or never accessing school in a rural town like Vredenburg. Through focus group discussions with learners, parents, teachers and local service providers, we gained disturbing insights into the lives of many of the young and teenaged children in the area.
We also saw that many parents were struggling to care and provide for their children, or had reached a point where they were no longer trying to do so. We listened to dedicated teachers who were deeply disheartened that, despite their best efforts, they were not getting through to their learners and not achieving the results that were expected of them.
We met wonderful service-providers who really care for the children, going the extra mile to support families and children despite the enormous need and lack of resources. A forensic social worker in Vredenburg who assesses children who have been raped or traumatised in other ways felt strongly that immediate and intensive trauma-counselling was necessary in order to prevent more devastating psychological harm to these children. According to her, there is a dearth of aftercare trauma-counselling services but, despite good intentions, children do not get adequate care from over-subscribed social services.
We tried to capture all this in the “Vredenburg Children’s Report” which has been circulated widely and had very positive responses.
Lessons learnt from this project:
- The value of cooperation with other organizations / institutions. For this project, we worked hand in hand with APD and UCT’s Department of Occupational Therapy. We also received significant encouragement and support from the Disabled Children’s Action Group and ELRU from Cape Town, Mfesane, HIV/Aids Initiative, Nicro, Badisa and many other community organizations in Vredenburg, as well as the local offices of the Departments of Education, Social Development, Health, Police and Justice.
- Time allocated to listening to the voice of the people is time well spent. Interviews, focus-group discussions, workshop discussions and reflection on the project with co-workers informed and guided our planning for the project. This helped us to work in a more developmental way and to move nearer to the ideal of “planning with” instead of “planning for”.
- The report highlights the challenges facing the ideal of “education for all” in our current society, as Vredenburg mirrors conditions found in most other South African communities. The need for a combined effort by all government and civil society role-players to work together to improve the future of our children is highlighted. The implication for our work is that if IESA wants to promote fuller inclusion of all children in schools, we need to enhance and support the building of safety networks. Children need to be supported at home, in the community, in their schools and classrooms. Teachers need support and skills to work with children who live, grow, and try to learn in dire home / community circumstances. They also require skills to teach these children resilience and other coping skills, including the motivation and ability to open their minds to learning despite their sadness, fear, anger and inability to concentrate. Schools need information and systems to support and refer children who desperately need help. The importance of community resources needs to be emphasized as government support systems are oversubscribed. Research for alternative community resources proved to be rewarding and worthwhile.