The ever-lurking scourge of crime takes a heavy toll every day in SA.
It is not confined to ganglands, sinister dark alleys or even suburban burglaries.
It affects ordinary citizens and the delivery of essential services in a multitude of destructive ways – whether it’s our children on their way to school, efficient telecommunications, the paramedic who responds to an emergency, the building of homes, doctors and nurses in clinics, or simply commuters trying to get to work on time.
People are living and working in fear – this is their cry for help . . .
Stationed just a few metres from Hillcrest Primary School is one of the police’s most sophisticated armoured vehicles – a Casspir.
It is a clear indication that the school, in Chamois Street, Helenvale, is in one of the most dangerous areas in Nelson Mandela Bay.
It is surrounded by the territories of at least five gangs and shootings are a regular occurrence, according to student governing body chair Rina Potgieter.
Teachers were sometimes booked off sick for as long as two months due to stress and at least five had resigned in the past year because of gang warfare, Potgieter said.
Despite the violence, Potgieter said, absenteeism among pupils had decreased thanks to increased police visibility and community interventions such as the “walking bus”.
But for some children, including her own grandchild, these measures had come too late.
“Some of my children and grandchildren have been through a lot – and that includes surviving two petrol bombings at my house,” she said.
“I’m a crime-fighter and I think that was why I was targeted.
“Luckily, no-one was injured but that, coupled with the shootings that happen here, has definitely traumatised one of my grandchildren.“She’s in grade 4 and can absolutely not focus.“I don’t even think she’s fit to be in a so-called ‘normal’ school because of the trauma. It has affected her so badly that she wakes up in the middle of the night, she wets the bed . . . but we have to support her because we know what she’s going through.”Potgieter said her grandchild was seeing a counsellor and was progressing well.“Unfortunately, counsellors are not freely available to children who need to see someone to whom they can talk.“Sometimes children are so used to the shooting that they run to the scene of a crime just to see what is happening.”Potgieter said the situation for the pupils at the other three schools in the area – Helenvale Primary, Bayview Primary and Gelvandale High School – was similar.“But I think it’s most volatile at Hillcrest and that’s why the Casspir is there.”Juanne Campher, a ward committee member and one of about 30 peace ambassadors in Helenvale, said he and his colleagues patrolled the area in groups.“It’s risky but what can we do? We have to live here and so we have to at least try to make it safer,” he said.“Normally our day starts at 5am because we not only assist pupils in the area but also people going to work.“Crime, especially muggings, has been reduced because we try to be as visible as possible.”“Yes, it’s dangerous, but there’s power in numbers and we always patrol in a big group.”Campher echoed the calls for more trauma counsellors in Helenvale.Lizzy Kleinbooi, 60, who volunteers as one of the “walking bus” members, said the initiative was yielding results.“The children gather at a certain stop and we collect them and we all walk together to their school – one of us leading the children and walking in front, two more parents at each side and one parent at the back.“It makes the children feel a lot safer and we have been seeing an increase in the number of children walking with us to school,” she said.The “walking bus” returned to take the children home, Kleinbooi said.Helenvale ward councillor Pieter Hermaans said: “It’s no secret that crime is a huge problem here.“For a child in Helenvale to reach grade 12 is a huge achievement because they literally put their lives at risk every day [going to and returning from school].“For some of them it means going through three to five gang hotspots.”Helenvale was one of the provincial education department’s headaches and a huge area of concern, department spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said.About the call for the department to deploy security guards at some schools in the Bay, Mtima said: “We have an agreement with the department of safety and liaison for training members of the community as school safety patrollers.”He said a huge chunk of the recently recruited 300 patrollers would be deployed at schools in the northern areas.