North West MEC for Social Development Fenny Gaolaolwe on Monday fulfilled her promise to take Banyana Malefo’s nine grandchildren to crèche and the local primary school when the schools reopened yesterday.

“During my first visit to Malefo family I made an undertaking to deploy social workers to look for space for these children and register them at a nearby crèche, which they did. I further promised the family that I would take the children to the crèche myself when the school reopens in July. Here they are today, registered at Jakunda early childhood development centre” Gaolaolwe said.

She said the other two children aged 12 and 15 are to be registered at Signal Hill Primary school while others are to be admitted at an ABET school in the area.

Gaolaolwe’s department and the National Development Agency would explore possibilities of renovating the current structure or building a new prototype early childhood development centre to cater to more than 150 children in the area.

When the school reopened on Monday, some of the five children, Tshireletso 5, keletso 7, and Puseletso 5, could be heard teasing their friends when they left their granny’s dilapidated shack to Jakunda crèche with MEC Gaolaolwe.

The children aged 0-6, accompanied by MEC Gaolaolwe were welcomed to Jakunda early childhood development centre at Signal Hill.

“We are going to crèche, man,” they said, jubilantly.

The manager of Jakunda crèche Agnes Mogale welcomed Malefo’s five children to the centre with open hands. Her crèche caters for 52 children from poverty stricken families who depend largely on social grants.

“I am so happy to receive these children. The more we have children in this centre, the more the stipend increases. For children aged 0-2 years parents pay R90 and for those aged 0-6, they pay R150 per month. We use this money to pay for the teachers and buy food,” Mogale said.

Yesterday after receiving Malefo’s children Mogale was granted a piece of land by the local chief.

“When government avail funds, we would built a big centre for all the children in this area,” she said.

Banyana Molefo(72), a mother of four daughter lives in a dilapidated shack with more than nine grandchildren including their four mothers who are unemployed. Malefo says her family depends on her pension grant which she claimed is minimal to cater for the rest of the family members.

She added: “All these children do not have birth certificates. As a result they are not getting child support grant because their mothers do not have identity documents. They all have to depend on me for survival.”

Signal Hill is notorious for child neglect and misuse of social grants. Most of the residents spend time drinking ‘nola,’ a home made beer to whirl away time.

MEC Gaolaolwe said her department would do household profiling in the area before the end of this month to determine needs of the residents in the area.-TDN
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