Thirty dusty kilometres off the N7 north to Namibia, past a scattering of sheep and dams, is the one-time missionary outpost of Rietpoort, where Ruan Klaase lives. Every school day the 14-year-old walks out of the village and climbs a boulder, spray painted with “Tiek Tok” graffiti, to get cellphone signal.
This is the only place where Klaase can get signal to chat online to fellow “child government monitors” in the Western Cape and to the first children’s commissioner, Christina Nomdo. She brought the band together despite the pandemic and treats them as equal partners in defending children’s rights.
They have had a major influence internationally, where their voices are being heard.
— Scotland's children commissioner, Bruce Adamson
“Children’s voices need to be heard and our opinions do matter,” says 17-year-old monitor Saadiq Daniels, whose Politics & Jazz show is one of two he co-hosts for RX Radio. Fellow monitors helped “Mr President”, as they call their friend with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair, along a track to the Tiek Tok rock during a field trip to Rietpoort last week.
These child government monitors are the only ones on the continent. Their impact — in communities and nationally, by making a submission on the Children’s Amendment Bill — and unique model, is attracting the world’s attention.
“It has been impressive to see how quickly and effectively the child government monitors have developed their work in the Western Cape,” says Bruce Adamson, Scotland’s Children and Young People’s commissioner and past chair of the European Network of Ombuds for Children.
“But they have also had a major influence internationally, where their voices are being heard at the UN and by Children’s Commissioners across Europe learning from their work.”
The children feel free to talk to “Tina” about anything. She, in turn, raises official concerns, for example, teachers beating students, with the appropriate provincial departments. In a case in Aurora, near Rietpoort, one teacher was dismissed and two more were under investigation.
Klaase, who joined monitors when he was just 12, says in Afrikaans: “This is giving me opportunities I have never had before and it is lekker to be with everyone.”
He attended the first in-person workshop Nomdo held with about 20 children in Rietpoort in October 2020, in a lull between Covid waves. Children 12 and older can be elected or nominated as monitors, or they can volunteer to be one, and he was nominated.
Solakha Noyi, 15, says: “Christina came to Plett Secondary in October and talked to us about wellbeing and safety and becoming monitors. A lot of us took her number and I put the paper in my blazer pocket and forgot it.
“When I found it again, I WhatsApped her and she asked, ‘Why do you want to join?’.” Nomdo texted back congratulations and Noyi says she shouted in joy.
“At home I’m the loud one, but here there are other people as loud or more loud than me,” she says of the group whom she met for the first time in person last week. “Finally I could put a face to the names and opinions on the chats.”
Half the 22 child activists attending a government budget training camp last week at Van Rhynsdorp, on the West Coast, had met before at a camp in March. “I was very nervous but it has been more than I expected. People are very open-hearted and I found it fun,” says Noyi.
Soon she was confident enough to take on an older teen in a spontaneous slam poetry contest, her first, improvising on topics like “tears” or “Africa”.
Laughter was common, including from Mr President, while the children debated if he was toppled or stepped down. The affection shared in the chilly conference centre arced between them like sparks, warming it up.
Over teatime, whoever held the “talking phone” had the floor and the topics veered from gender violence and climate change, to the merits of Macbeth vs Othello and favourite poems. How to make the best potjie, ahead of a contest, was another.
These teens seldom scrolled on their phones — which is, in fact, one of their complaints about teachers in class — despite the free Wi-Fi, and at night hung out playing dominoes and card games until the curfew.
About half the group were official monitors and half “mentors”, in other words, teens who had turned 18 and were still committed to their role.
Gretchen Oliphant, the top grade 12 pupil in her school in Murraysburg, turned 18 last month.
“I didn’t know the commissioner when she came to our school but the principal called me to greet her because I’m the head girl. I was a bit scared to share my story with her. I didn’t not know if she would judge me but she was so welcoming,” says Oliphant, rocking her peaceful eight-month-old baby.
Oliphant, accompanied by her mother, came to the camp with baby Cimmellá, who was soon the group mascot. “Everyone created a safe space for both of us. Everyone wants to hold her. I never thought we would be this tight,” said the slender teen with a ponytail, and crimson bunny slippers.
“I want other girls to know that school does not have to end with a baby. You can still reach your goals.
“I got lots of support but, like every school, not every teacher was supportive, and I just held my head high,” said the popular student, who studies when everyone is asleep and will apply to do nursing at Stellenbosch University.
Klaase will also be moving next year, to Van Rhynsdorp to do grade 10, because Rietpoort has no high school. Near the Northern Cape border, the village has limited services as Klaase showed during the field trip.
First stop was the primary school, with two taps and a litter-free dirt playground, where pupils from different grades share classrooms. From here the children walked past the clinic and hostels, where teachers have replaced nuns.
Klaase guided the group past a towering 109-year-old church to a well from where people used to draw their water. “Eish, city kids,” laughed one of the older ones watching them peer into its depths.
“I could live here if I just had a better house, electricity and Wi-Fi,” another remarked, on the way to a historic cave.
“What day is this?” asked one auntie from her front steps, looking at the merry band. “It is the children’s commissioner day,” they chorused.
The final stop was the Tiek Tok rock, a symbol of Klaase’s commitment to report in daily, for which Nomdo organised him a cellphone.
In the hall after lunch, she donned her pink and blue superhero cape to give the children feedback from the government departments over which she has oversight: education, health and cultural affairs and social development.
They reported on specific actions taken, such as on improving the state of ablution facilities. The children identified gaps in delivery for the commissioner to follow up.
The children discussed their submission to parliament on the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill, in which they said it was “unfair to criminalise parents” if their children were not at school, given the barriers to attendance, such as transport costs.
Klaase ended the session with an energetic “rieldans”, part of his heritage.
The next day they were back on the money: analysing what was being spent on children’s programmes in government budgets. In one exercise they studied Nomdo’s payslip; she holds herself answerable to their advisory council of 12 when it comes to performance.
The monitors got to grips with the Western Cape’s 792-page blue and white budget during the week, and clues from this tome guided them on a difficult treasure hunt. “There is no need to Google, the answers are all in the book,” Nomdo told them, before they sprinted out the door.
Sharna Fernandez, then-acting premier and the minister of social development, and Western Cape DG Harry Maila were among those who drove more than 300km to address the children during the camp.
The Western Cape government has taken the time to listen to their monitors, and even parliament has done so. Last year nine of the children’s government monitors presented the views of 40 children on the Children’s Amendment Bill, at its first ever closed session for children and young people.
“Every presenter made an indelible mark and I was incredibly empowered by the eye-opening and insightful accounts of their experiences and work,” said DA shadow minister for social development, after their contribution.
This initiative is much more than a symbolic step in realising children’s rights in the Western Cape. It is a giant leap forward on how to do this, with children leading from the front.
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