15. Joubertskloof Ondersteuning Groep (JOG)
In the early years, once our staff was no longer drawn from local workers, we decided to put energy into the community of Joubertskloof in another way. The initial idea was to set up some kind of community development group and to this end, in 2008, I contacted Welgemeend Primêr, the local primary school. There, I hooked up with a few teachers who agreed to take this idea forward, and over the next months, together with two other members of the community, we formed an NPO called JOG. Joubertskloof Ondersteuning Groep (Joubertskloof Support Group).
The first task of the group was to go onto the farms to speak with farmworkers and to get them to choose a J.O.G. representative for each farm. This was a difficult process as we first had to get permission from the farmers to go onto their farms and quite a few refused us entrance. Also, farm workers were unfamiliar with the idea of representation and found it difficult to choose a rep. Then, once chosen, reps did not follow up and attend J.O.G. meetings as planned.
Eventually after a year, we gave up and just remained with our original group. We decided to choose one project to focus on – namely forming a crèche for three to five year olds which could run from the school. This goal pleased me as preschool children tended to spend their days without supervision hanging around outside their houses.
In order to get funds for our crèche I approached SAWIT (South African Wine Industry Trust), and was successful. With two hundred and fifty thousand rand in our coffers we set about drawing up building plans and getting a team together to build a crèche, attached to the school. We also employed a project manager whose first tasks were to oversee the building process and to recruit parents of appropriately aged children. It was decided that until we had more money, the preschool grade R. teacher would run the activities for the children and supervise two assistants. One of these would also cook lunch for the children.
It took some time to get the crèche built and we were fortunate to get Rotary to help us appoint it. It further took a long time to get parents in the community to agree to send their children to the crèche, and even longer to get the children to actually attend. One problem was a lack of transport for the children, and farmers we approached refused to help us with this. In the end only children who could be walked to the crèche could attend. This was about twenty children.
Finally, after two years, the crèche was running and continued to do more or less successfully for the next three years. We struggled to get any additional funding, but to build capacity, with the idea of growing the crèche, we expanded the JOG. group to include a member of Swartland Municipality. Unfortunately this was not fruitful, and then sadly, after our project manager formed a romantic relationship with a local farmworker, the community turned against her and she resigned. With the last of our saved money we employed a man recommended to us by the municipality with the task of getting funding to buy a bus for the crèche, so that it could be reached by children further afield. This backfired on us as the person in question suffered a personal crisis and did nothing more than source swings and a jungle gym for the crèche.
Soon after this I resigned from the JOG. committee. The crèche continued to run for a year with children from within walking distance until it eventually closed down. The building extension was taken over by the school who use it for their grade R teaching.
All in all, JOG was not successful. This was a great disappointment to me. On the up side, forty or so children did attend the crèche over the years that it ran, and we left the legacy of a building that was of use to the school.