Children suffer as social ills engulf small town
In the Karoo’s Prince Albert, learners drop out of school amid daunting problems: unemployment, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and neglect. By
It’s just after 10am in the middle of the week in Prince Albert in the Karoo and about 35 children are running around at the Bambino crèche in the poor district of North End.
The children, aged one to six, are safe but many of their peers are out in the community unsupervised – in an area rife with substance abuse, unemployment and, according to some, a lack of parental responsibility.
Children run in the streets; some play in yards. Three are playing near a fire in someone’s back yard.
Prince Albert has a population of 14,671, with just over 4,000 under the age of 14. People living in the area agree that the town faces major problems with its children and youth: drugs and alcohol, unemployment and poverty.
According to the Western Cape government’s socioeconomic profile of Prince Albert in 2020, only 2,141 learners are enrolled in the five schools in the municipality – a drop from 2,146 in 2019. The profile warns that Prince Albert has one of the lowest (67%) school retention rates in the Central Karoo.
Among the causes are economic factors such as poverty and social factors such as teenage pregnancy. The town’s teenage pregnancy rate stands at 11.9%.
South Africa’s national figures reveal an alarming school dropout rate: 3% of 15-yearolds and 9% of 17-year-olds have dropped out in 2021, according to Stats SA. There has been a decline in children under four attending preschool – in 2019 the figure was 36.8% but, by 2021, it had dropped to 28.5%.
During DM168’s visit to Prince Albert, community workers and politicians spoke at length about several issues: a lack of parental responsibility, especially among young parents, substance abuse and a lack of opportunity made worse by young people dropping out of school.
At the Bambino crèche – the oldest one in Prince Albert, founded in 1991 – sat Lena
Miggels (61). After working there for 30 years, she will retire this year.
“I would say there is a future for our children but only if our parents come to their senses. It’s an evil – the drink, the drugs, that tik – it’s really a problem,” Miggels said.
She went on: “The majority of the children are young mothers’ children.”
Parents received child support grants of R480, she said, but they were not spent on children’s welfare. When both parents were out of work, they depended on the grant money for their own needs.
Miggels said that what was needed was more interventions from organisations such as Badisa, a church-sponsored nonprofit, to coach parents on parental responsibility.
The principal of Bambino crèche, Beulah Wehr (43), repeated Miggels’s sentiments about younger people having children and added: “These are parents that don’t know how to take responsibility properly and now they let their children suffer.”
Wehr’s three children have all passed through Miggels’s hands at the crèche, including one who is now studying to become a teacher.
Wehr suggested entities such as the South African Social Security Agency needed to teach parents how to spend their grants correctly – using them for children’s welfare.
Wehr said parents were often unable to pay the crèche’s fees of R150 a month, leaving its employees without salaries. The crèche has three permanent teachers, three trainee teachers and a cook.
“It isn’t about the money, for us it’s about the love for the children… We took an oath, you won’t be there for the money, but you will be there for the child’s upbringing,” she said.
Apart from limited income from fees, the crèche gets R2,000 a month from a donor. There’s no support from the local and provincial government, or from Prince Albert’s businesses and wealthier residents.
Wehr said: “They need to have love in their hearts. If they don’t have love in their hearts, they won’t open their arms.”
She said businesses did not need to give money but could donate necessities such as electricity, gas or even a packet of sugar.
In another part of North End, Lucrecia Darries (37) sits in her home. She used to run a soup kitchen for children under 13. Started in 2020, it provided breakfast and lunch twice a week to as many as 50 children. However, it stopped operating last year because she could find no sponsors. Darries is unemployed and relies on her husband’s income.
Children still come to her home asking for food. “This morning there was a girl asking for a slice of bread,” she said.
According to the Child Gauge 2021/2022, published by the University of Cape Town, child poverty in the Western Cape increased from 27% in 2019 to 46% in 2020.
Describing Prince Albert, Darries said it was calm, “but there is poverty too – as a result of alcohol [and] drugs, the children suffer”.
She said joblessness was a major problem in the community. Though there were jobs in places such as the hospital, the jail and courts, “at all times, you need matric and most of our young people drop out of school