The children of the farm communities have to overcome a number of difficult obstacles to become educated. The conditions in farming crèches are horrendous, although Farmers try their best to provide facilities; they are not always by means to provide all the other educational equipment to make it a conducive learning environment for the children.
Children are walking approximately 2-4 km to the nearest pick-up points to the school. There is also no shelter at the pick up points of the busses, which pose a huge problem in winter times. All these factors influence the children's school attendance and performance, therefore a very few farm children complete their school career. Farm children have a huge disadvantage with education and once they are ready to go to secondary school in towns, they cannot integrate into the town's environment.
Most of the children came from their homes, but never attend the school and then get involve with crime in the towns. Parents have no control over the children, because they work and are under the impression the children are in school. The Stokkiesdraai Project wants to address the issues that contribute to the school drop-outs of farm children.
The project firstly wants to start to improve and or establish the crèches on the farms, because the foundational education is very important. The erection of shelters at the bus pick-up points is also important, especially in the winter times. The long term phase is to rebuild the relationship between parents and children. |
