Ikaya Primary School has more than 2 000 learners and many have social challenges, which the new counselling service on the school premises hopes to help address.
Thursday 16 May, Community Keepers officially opened the new service room at the school. Social services at the school have been available for some time and principal Noluthando Gxekwa said the learners were already using the service.
Community Keepers is an organisation aimed at providing therapeutic counselling at schools. The Khayamandi school’s safe space pod is one of 90 the organisation is opening.
Community Keepers CEO Gerrit Laning emphasised that the services provided by the Community Keepers’ team is there to help the school community. “You, as educators, know these children best,” he told teachers. “You know their struggles. We are here to help lighten your load.”
Gxekwa is certain the Community Keepers’ service will be affective as many of the school’s learners have various challenges.
“We have learners with behavioural challenges, learners dealing with rape, they come from a poor community and some grow up without their parents. The service will not just help them, but the educators too.”
Social worker Liyema Nofemele along with a care facilitator, work directly with the learners, who are referred by the school. A specific support for each learner is assessed and provided.
Nofemele said part of the success of Community Keepers’ service is that learners are able to communicate in their mother tongue.
“If they spoke to a social worker who couldn’t speak isiXhosa, the language becomes another barrier,” Nofemele said. “A third person would have to act as translator and, aside from things getting lost in translation, it also means there is one more person with whom the child would have to interact.”
Nofemele is at the safe space pod weekdays from 07:30 to 16:00.
