GRAAFF-REINET NEWS - Khanyisa Day Care Centre provides an important service to the Graaff-Reinet community. 

Here children flourish.

However, in January, when the doors opened to the one hundred children attending Khanyisa's Early Childhood Development Programme, no water ran from the school's taps. 

The school's managing director, Bukelwa Booysen, reported the problem to the Engineering Department. 

"They sent some guys but they could not assist as they could not find the water meter box. They went away and never came back. I called many times. Thank God we have the water tank."

In addition to caring for 100 toddlers, the school also runs a critical service for children with disabilities who cannot be accommodated elsewhere. And they run a protective workshop for youth.

With the school bursting at the seams and a long waiting list, Booysen's requests to the municipality for space to expand have also gone unheard. This, despite a second, underutilised portion of the building on the premises.

A break-in

Then, on the weekend of 12 March, there was a break-in at the school. The building is well secured, but they vandalised the site to gain entry. They broke through the palisade fence and used an axe to chop through the gated door. 

They stole four TVs used for educational purposes and several essential kitchen items.

These have been challenging times for Booysen and her staff. But three days after the break-in, a visit from Dutch citizen, Fred Kerkvliet was cause for celebration.

Kerkvliet first visited Khanyisa in 2018. The experience so moved this Australian-born Dutch citizen that on his return to Holland he decided to write a book of his experiences in South Africa – and donated the proceeds to Khanyisa. 

Kerkvliet not only wrote but illustrated, designed and published the book himself.

So what drew him to Khanyisa?

"I am one of the lucky ones," he says "but I know what it's like to be poor." Growing up in Australia, Kerkvliet experienced poverty. But more challenging was the family's return to Holland when he was a young teen. "I missed the nature, the open space."

Working in the tourism industry allows him to travel and he visit South Africa numerous times since 1994.

But a small school in a dorp in the Karoo captured his heart.

Having written and sold the book and planned his trip to hand over the donation of R25 000, the Covid pandemic forced him to postpone. He used the time to collect gifts and clothes for the children.

Bukelwa Booysen was aware of these gifts to be donated. However, she was not aware of Kerkvliet's book writing and fundraising initiative. On Kerkvliet and his wife, Ankie's, arrival at Khanyisa, despite the hardship of the break-in two days earlier, Booysen took them to visit the children. 

To Booysen's evident surprise, at the end of the visit, Kerkvliet handed over his donation.

The Khanyisa Day Care Centre thanks Fred Kerkvliet for his kindness. Perhaps his act of generosity will turn the tide. Three months with no running water for a school serving the most vulnerable in our community, our children, is not acceptable.

Related article: Taps run dry at the Khanyisa Day Care Centre

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