Over 40 000 people in some of the country’s poorest villages and towns have flocked to grant registration “jamborees” being run countrywide to help poor parents to get childcare grants.

In Phutadijhaba in QwaQwa, Free State, over 30 000 people attended last week ‘s jamboree. Villages in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Northern and Eastern Cape have also been targeted by the campaign, which is prioritising areas identified by government as “nodal points of extreme poverty”.

The jamborees, which run until March, are being driven by a unique partnership between Soul City, the Alliance for Children’s Entitlement to Social Security (ACESS) and government departments. They are being publicised through SABC’s African language radio stations.

“In Moletji, a village near Pholokwane, some women started to queue on the day of the jamboree at 4am with their babies on their backs, so desperate are they for grants to help raise their children,” said ACESS’s Lyndsay Brown.

Three-quarters of South Africa’s children live on less than R400 a month, according to Idasa. Yet only 42% of eligible children are getting childcare grants, according to Teresa Guthrie of the University of Cape Town’s Children’s Institute. Two of the country’s poorest provinces — the Eastern Cape and Limpopo – have the lowest take-up rate for grants which can be attributed to poor administrative services.

People in rural areas “have the greatest problems in getting access to services”, says Soul City’s Penny Dlamini, which is why said the jamborees have targeted rural areas. She added that her organisation would be following up on the applications to ensure that they resulted in people getting grants.

At the jamborees, mobile Home Affairs offices are able to issue birth certificates on the spot to mothers who have a maternity certificate from the hospital or clinic where their child was born. Adults without ID books can also apply for these.

People who have the necessary documents are able to apply there-and-then for grants from officials from the Department of Social Development. However, there have been some difficulties. Some Home Affairs officials have not been prepared to work overtime and volunteers from local community organisations have had to step in to help at jamborees.

“Most of the officials have been co-operative and willing to work with us, but in QwaQwa we experienced difficulties in coping with the numbers, as we had to rely solely on volunteers to help Home Affairs as they said their staff were not prepared to work on a Saturday,” said ACESS representative Sharon Shevil.

Problems were also experienced in Limpopo, where Home Affairs staff remained in their offices during jamborees and volunteers had to drive back and forth to the offices to get birth certificates processed and then return them to applicants.

At present, government gives child care grants of R130 a month to children under the age of seven whose parents prove that their combined income is less than R1 000 a month in rural areas and R800 in urban areas.

Non-biological caregivers can also get the grant provided that they make an affidavit saying that they have the parents’ permission to look after the child. In cases where parents are dead, death certificates need to be produced.

Foster care grants of R450 a month are available to poor people caring for children under the age of 18 who are not their own. To qualify, foster parents need to be screened by social workers, who make a recommendation to the children’s court. If the court decides in favour of the foster parents, it issues a court order. Once a court order has been granted, the foster parent can apply for a grant.

A R620 care dependency grants is available for parents of severely disabled children up to the age of 18. Many people are either not aware that they can get such grants or do not know how to apply for them. Others lack the necessary documents, such as birth and death certificates, to qualify.

For more information on grants, call the Department of Social Development 0800 601 011 or Circles of Support hotline 0860 222 777.