Anna Beulah farm is an echo farm producing eggs, vegetables, olives, honey and many more produce.
Hendrick and Marti Gerber have lived on farms in the area for many years and currently live on Anna Beulah farm. They became aware that there were a number of families living on adjacent farms with children of all ages who didn’t seem to be attending school. This was nagging at their conscience for some time and after much prayer they decided to try and do something about it. Jasmin who also works on the farm told them about her relatives who’s children had never been to school. She was one of the few lucky ones who was able to go to school. Realising that whatever they were being led to do, it had to start somewhere.
The children that Jasmin has spoken of were invited to come to the farm and learn to draw and paint and begin to learn how to read and write. This was a very informal activity and has to fit in with the duties of the staff working there. Regardless of this the activities are regular with Marti Gerber making a trip to the nearby Vissershok farm to collect 4 or 5 children and bring them for their lessons. They are taught by Marti and fed by Hendrick and allowed to play. Since then, we have seen remarkable changes in some who were seemingly so traumatised that they hid their faces and could not be touched. Today they smile and play and join in with all the activities.
On further investigation, it was found that the children were not allowed entry to a formal school because they didn’t have birth certificates. This started a process to find out how this could be corrected. We discovered that in order for the children to be registered, first the mother has to be registered.
Only then can the children be considered for registration by Home Affairs.
The irony is that on the short journey from Vissershok farm to Anna Beulah they have to pass the school. As word got around more and more children wanted to come to Anna Beulah.
Anna Beulah Farm receives many visitors who show an interest in the activities there. People who started arriving to buy vegetables, and ended up wanting to help with the children.
Just Charity getting involved
The members of the Just Charity NGO volunteered to take time out from their full-time jobs to collect and return the children once a week during working time. This brought the number of children up to around 6 - 14 at any given time.
Going forward, we have to find people who have ID books who have known the mothers for many years and who can identify them to the Home affairs Department. Once the mother has an ID book we have to apply for birth certificates for the children providing proof of date and place of birth. We can apply to have the children placed into school, however most of them have already missed several years of schooling and we have been told that it is unlikely that the school will accept them. We can have them evaluated to see if they are suited for schooling. The next challenge is to give these children catch up education so that they can be slotted into the mainstream system at a later date.
As you begin to scratch the surface you find that what starts out as “just entertaining some farm children” has opened our eyes to such an enormous problem facing the whole country.
Currently we are looking for funding so that we can get the children into a homeschooling curriculum, as well as volunteers to help teach the kids.