Francesca Villette
IT’S not a typical school day for 70 children from Hangberg, Hout Bay.
The children have just enjoyed sprinkle-covered cupcakes and are licking the remnants of sweet icing from their blue-stained lips and fingertips.
They excitedly sing Happy Birthday, their voices ringing out from their school in the heart of the impoverished fishing community, beset by unemployment, drug abuse, gangsterism and prostitution.
This month the Hangberg Pre-Primary school celebrates its first birthday. The school is one of three in the community of 70 000 people.
There are about 2 000 pre-school aged children in Hangberg, but the three registered facilities accommodate less than 500 children, says Marquerithe Schreuder, a founding member of the Hangberg Educational Trust.
Schreuder and Tania Gray, both executive members of the Trust, have spent the past four years working in the education sector.
The Trust started the Hangberg Pre-Primary schools last year.
The school is currently leasing two classrooms from Sentinel Primary until their own building is finished in the next year.
Schreuder said the Department of Public Works, Western Cape Education Department and Sentinel Primary’s principal and school governing body had agreed that the Trust could build the pre-primary school on the premises of the existing school.
“In July last year we opened the first class, where we had registered nine children. Two weeks later we had registered 24 children,” Schreuder said.
The school has since opened another classroom and accommodates 70 children.
When construction of the school is completed, it will have four classrooms with a capacity to accommodate 120 pupils, Schreuder said.
The cost to parents is R50 a week, which many parents struggle to pay, Schreuder said.
Executive member Karen Temlett said that weekly payments were an adjustment for parents from the community.
“A sense of pride and responsibility is instilled when parents pay for their child’s education. The children receive two cooked meals a day, which for some are the only meals they receive. It was important for us to create a safe and welcoming environment for the children,” Temlett said.
Monthly meetings are attended by 70 percent of the parents and guardians.
The school has two qualified teachers and a class helper who matriculated from Hout Bay High School.
If the school did not exist, many of the children would be roaming the streets with their peers as they had before, Temlett added.