{"id":228736,"date":"2022-06-13T19:56:17","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T17:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/creche-struggles-with-back-to-back-burglaries-fire\/"},"modified":"2022-06-13T19:56:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T17:56:17","slug":"a-creche-battles-to-survive-after-cops-fail-to-pitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/a-creche-battles-to-survive-after-cops-fail-to-pitch\/","title":{"rendered":"A cr\u00e8che battles to survive after cops fail to pitch"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Vincent%20Lali\/blessings_educare.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/a-creche-battles-to-survive-after-cops-fail-to-pitch.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Joyce Sonkononkolo cleaning up the debris left by robbers and a fire at the at Blessings Educare in Symphony Way, Delft, Cape Town. Photo: Vincent Lali<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p class=\"intro\">A cr\u00e8che in Delft was robbed on two consecutive nights last week.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"intro\">Police were called after the first burglary but never pitched up.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"intro\">Teachers say they fear for their safety and that of the 30 children in preschool and grade R.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"intro\">The teachers only have one functioning classroom now and need their teaching materials and equipment to be recovered or replaced.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Back-to-back burglaries and a fire at Blessings Educare in Symphony Way, Delft, have left teachers at the cr\u00e8che fearing for their safety.<\/p>\n<p>Grade R teacher Sisanda Deyizana said burglars stole teaching equipment, learners\u2019 books and stationery, toiletries, posters, cupboards and chairs, and then set her classroom alight early on Tuesday morning.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/a-creche-battles-to-survive-after-cops-fail-to-pitch.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson Jermaine Carelse confirmed that a call was received at 5:32am on 7 June and that emergency personnel responded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe criminals ripped electrical cables off the walls and stole an electrical lamp,\u201d said Deyizana.<\/p>\n<p>After the burglary on Tuesday, Deyizana and the caretaker found the hole in the fence where the thieves had entered. \u201cWe didn\u2019t interfere with the crime scene and phoned the Delft police, but they never showed up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe waited for the police to come and examine the crime scene until we gave up on Tuesday and the caretaker decided to fix the hole in the fence himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But on Wednesday night, the thieves reopened the hole and targeted another classroom, making off with toiletries, teaching equipment, six small mattresses, two tables, and 11 chairs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the police had come to look into the crime scene and patrolled around here, the thugs would have been deterred from returning to burgle and steal again here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>A resident then spotted youths with a trolley carting off what looked like school equipment and alerted the Delft police.<\/p>\n<p>Sergeant Wesley Twigg of SAPS Western Cape Media Centre confirmed that two suspects, aged 27 and 28, were arrested for the possession of presumed stolen property and arson. The suspects made their court appearance in the Bellville Magistrates court on Thursday. The investigation into the matter continues, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Twigg did not comment on the failure of the police to arrive after the Tuesday burglary.<\/p>\n<p>Deyizana said teachers are now struggling to give lessons as the pre-Grade R learners and Grade R learners are in one classroom because of the fire.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can\u2019t give the learners age-appropriate lessons when they are mixed in one classroom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe as teachers are afraid because we don\u2019t know what will happen to us and the kids. We don\u2019t feel safe here anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven the caretaker is scared to sleep here because he doesn\u2019t know how he will defend himself against the criminals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Deyizana said numbers at the cr\u00e8che has dropped from over 60 to 30.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParents seem to be pulling them out because they fear for their safety,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the parents are factory, construction or domestic workers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want the police to \u2026 help us get the stolen property back,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have not been updated on the police investigation into the burglaries, thefts and arson. We don\u2019t even know the name of the investigator.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pre-Grade R teacher Joyce Sonkononkolo said baby wipes, tipex, Vaseline, blankets and toilet paper were stolen from her classroom in the Wednesday robbery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI use baby wipes to clean the kids\u2019 faces and apply Vaseline before they go home every day. Parents don\u2019t have money to buy other baby wipes and Vaseline again before month end,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t have money to repair the cr\u00e8che,\u201d she said. \u201cWe wish a Good Samaritan could give us learning equipment and blankets so we can resume teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zandile Jalamba, whose two kids attend Grade R and Pre-Grade R, said, \u201cThe thugs first burgled and burned the cr\u00e8che and then returned to steal. We fear for the safety of our kids because we don\u2019t know what they will do next.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said the cr\u00e8che was well located and \u201cthe teachers look after kids, feed them well and charge affordable fees\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/a-creche-battles-to-survive-after-cops-fail-to-pitch.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joyce Sonkononkolo cleaning up the debris left by robbers and a fire at the at Blessings Educare in Symphony Way, Delft, Cape Town. Photo: Vincent Lali A cr\u00e8che in Delft was robbed on two consecutive nights last week. Police were called after the first burglary but never pitched up. Teachers say they fear for their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":228737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-228736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/a-creche-battles-to-survive-after-cops-fail-to-pitch.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}