NPO’s work halted following looting, arson of Briardene offices
The outside of the building and some of the offices inside the premises were tagged with graffiti and worse still, the centre's vehicles were either stolen or damaged in the looting and arson.
LOCAL NPO, Training and Resources in Early Education (TREE) that specialises in Early Childhood Development (ECD) resource and training said they are not functioning or operational after their premises on Krishna Road (Briardene) was completely looted.
Teressa Ngobese, senior programmes manager for TREE said they estimate they’ve incurred approximately R9-million in damages and currently are not able to fulfil their mandate due to the number of items taken.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that every single office and resource centre within our premises was looted over the course of a few days. We are devastated by what we’ve experienced to date and when we returned to the premises to see what had been damaged or taken, we couldn’t believe the scale of theft and looting. We first caught sight of the people entering our offices on our CCTV cameras. We saw people remove furniture, crockery, sinks and other materials before our cameras were stolen and damaged.
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The outside of the building and some of the offices inside the premises were tagged with graffiti and worse still, the centre’s vehicles were either stolen or damaged in the looting and arson.
Ngobese also explained how the looting had impacted on their operations.
“Honestly we are not operational. There aren’t even desks for any of our work staff to sit at. We operate in rural areas where the community is most deprived and we can’t function because of the loss of everything. We are a training institution, that means we train and capacitate the ECD workforce practitioners who come here from all over KZN, some even stay in our boarding facilities, which were also looted and we are not functional because of this devastation.
“We were busy with printing posters about Covid-19 for ECD centres in rural areas as a way to create awareness and what is the best practice to being compliant and keeping your ECD centre safe and now without equipment we are unable to carry out that task. Our photocopier machine was very important to us as we print training materials for participants and for the community and now we cannot even do that. We are appealing to the community for any help and would appreciate any donation in the form of beds, crockery, furniture, even a printer or anything to help us,” Ngobese said.
If you would like to help the centre contact the director of TREE, Ruby on 083 406 3721.
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