Getting our children back into the classroom

In projects helping children who have been prostituted or trafficked.

Three community organisations in Gauteng have devised ways to open the doors of learning for out-of-school children who have been living on the streets or exploited for sex.

All three organisations received financial and technical support from the programme Towards the Elimination of the worst forms of Child Labour (TECL) as part of a pilot project on preventing and mitigating the effects of the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) and child trafficking.

Kid’s Haven: Remedial classes to build success and confidence
Kid’s Haven is a community organisation in Benoni which runs a short-term shelter for street children and a village for those children who cannot be reunited with their families.

Terri Heatlie, head of the educational section of Kid’s Haven, says the organisation “really feels that the children should be included in mainstream schooling and not kept separate. This way their social skills improve and they are part of the community”. Kid’s Haven places about 40 children in school each year, using 18 local schools.

To ensure their children are successful in mainstream schools, Kid’s Haven puts in a great deal of work to bring them up to speed academically. Many of the children have not been at school for some time. Some dropped out of school precisely because they were struggling. The experience of repeating grades and “feeling stupid” helped push them on to the streets.

Kid’s Haven provides a bridging school and remedial lessons to ensure that school becomes a positive place and not a negative experience. Terri says: “Remediation classes are a wonderful way to assist the children. They work together with a very structured homework routine which tackles the areas where the children are weak.”

Staff members carefully monitor the children’s progress, both academically and behaviourally, and attend all parent teacher meetings. There are often problems with the children, and the staff have to mediate with the schools to ensure that children are not expelled.

Through TECL’s assistance, 35 Kid’s Haven children, aged 10 to 16 years, received remedial help during 2006, focusing mainly on English, Afrikaans and mathematics. Each remedial session lasted 90 minutes and the children were given homework to reinforce the concepts learned. The remedial teachers include retired teachers from local schools.

Elize is a typical success story. Although she is 13 years old, she is only in Grade 4 and lacked many of the basic building blocks in education. Her English marks have improved dramatically from the 50-69% grade-band to the 70-100% range. Perhaps more importantly, her confidence has grown so that she now tackles tasks on her own. For Terri, the reward lies in Elize giving her a big hug, saying: “Thank you for my special school.”

The support provided by Kid’s Haven helps to improve the child’s self-esteem which is critical when the child is reunited with family or community and has to cope alone with factors like peer pressure and teasing.

Home of Hope: Using a specialised resource
New Nation School, a Johannesburg government school set up especially for children living on the streets, has been a life saver for Berea Hillbrow Home of Hope. Khanyi Motsa, who runs the organisation, would prefer the children to attend mainstream schools to learn to adjust to the wider world and to escape labelling. But the reality is that government schools in the inner city are so crowded that Khanyi can seldom enrol any Home of Hope children unless they are entering Grade 1.

For the older children, New Nation School provides an answer. Unable to provide remedial assistance, Home of Hope’s staff members ensure that the children in their shelter are assisted with their daily homework. In addition, they provide homework support to 120 children from the surrounding area, most of whom they have helped place in schools. Each weekday, Home of Hope offers these children a meal, a place to do their homework, and encouragement and support while they do it.

New Life Centre: Opening the doors of learning
New Life Centre also operates in the inner city of Johannesburg and, in December 2006 initiated successful talks to ensure that the out-of-school children attending its drop-in centre would be admitted to local schools.

Khopotso Nakin, director of New Life Centre, met with representatives of the provincial Department of Social Development and the provincial Department of Education. She secured an undertaking from the Education Department that an official would ensure that the Centre had a letter directing principals to accept its out-of-school children as non-fee paying learners. The Department of Social Welfare would help by providing uniforms. Approximately 40 children were enrolled in various schools for the 2007 year.

Reintegrating out-of-school children into mainstream classrooms is a challenging process, from academic and behavioural perspectives. Success is more probable where provincial Departments of Education and Social Development work closely with community organisations that understand the needs of out-of-school children. The TECL-supported organisations feel that having a dedicated staff member in every school district to build relationships between the schools, the organisations and the affected children would enhance the chances of a positive result.