Oration at funeral of the four Siyanda educators by the honourable Premier, mme Dipuo Peters

Husbands, children, sisters, brothers and relatives of the Maasdorp, Beezs and Feris families
Pastors and religious leaders from our various religions
MECs and members of our Provincial Legislature
Mayors and councillors
Leaders and members of our School Governing Bodies (SGBs)
Principals and educators
Educator formations
Learners and youth formations
Fellow mourners

We are gathered here today to bid our final farewell to four of our beloved educators, wives, grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts and friends.

We are gathered here today to bid farewell to leaders of our people and champions of our children. People who understood only too well the great responsibility that history had thrust upon them. We bid farewell to people and educators who were much loved, respected and admired.

We bid farewell with heavy hearts, for we realise that some of the best among us have departed. We have lost people who embodied so much of that to which we all aspire.

As we bid farewell to these educators we also pay tribute to community leaders whose personal attributes and characters will live on as inspirations to all of us.

This is a moment of great pain and grief for the families of the departed. It is also a moment of intense grief and sadness for all of us in government, for all our learners and for all our people across the province.

As we bid farewell to our beloved educators, our parents and our leaders and accompany them to their final resting place we say to the family members your grief is the pain of the nation. Your sorrow is our sadness. The tragedy that befell our educators has indeed devastated all our people.

The educators that we come to bid farewell today are people who have enriched our understanding of leadership, duty and responsibility.

Die onderwysers wat ons vandag te ruste lê was mense en leiers wat nooit hulle verantwoordelikhede om die ware belange van hulle leerlinge en ander wat in hulle sorg geplaas is, versuim het nie.

Hulle het nooit ingegee tot erge druk van afsetting en teenspoed nie en ook nooit hulle eie welvaart gesoek teen die verlies van hulle leerders en ons mense nie.

The educators that we come to lay to rest today were people and leaders who would not relinquish their responsibility to represent the genuine interests of their pupils and those entrusted in their care.

They would neither submit to the extreme pressure of deprivation and hardship and nor would they seek their own fortune at the expense of their learners and our people.

To this commitment we can attest as these educators before us here dedicated their lives to serve communities as poor as our most of our communities in the province. They dedicated their lives to serve communities where the rate of illiteracy, underdevelopment and substance as well as alcohol abuse is rampant.

These educators did not turn a blind eye to the plight of thousands of our children and our people. Instead they galvanised quiet courage and unwavering focus to work tirelessly to extricate our children from shackles of poverty and underdevelopment.

Our people will forever celebrate what you did to help them regain their dignity and self-worth. The memories we have and will forever cherish of these educators are memories of servants of the community who devoted their lives to improving the lot of especially those children affected by the fatal alcohol syndrome disease.

Such was their commitment to these children that they would sometimes feed them with their own even before the school-feeding scheme started.

These educators would make time to even visit the parents of these children to assist them with some of the social ills that we know afflict many of our communities.

Such was their commitment to these children whose condition of fatal alcohol syndrome (FAS) caused by the excessive drinking of women while there are pregnant, that they suffer permanent physical and intellectual damage that Mev Maasdorp and Anna Beezs made a request for a special school to be established for these children so that they could devote all their time and energy caring for them.

These educators knew that the hunger that afflicts our children demands action today and not tomorrow. The poverty that grinds down the people of our province requires action today and not tomorrow. The millions throughout our country who cry out for an end to their misery expect an answer today rather than tomorrow.

As a nation we will forever celebrate what you did to help all of us to regain our dignity as children, learners and as people. What you left undone we will collectively strive to complete.

All these, ladies and gentlemen, demand that we do what we can to mould ourselves in the images of Anna and Rachel Beezs, Annetta Maasdorp and Geraldine Feris, inspired by everything they did as servants of our people and by their humility.

Dames en Here, alles waaroor ek nou gesels het, vereis dat ons moet doen wat ons kan om onsself te vorm tot die ewebeelde van Anna en Rachel Beezs, Anneta Maasdorp en Geraldine Feris geinspireer deur alles wat hulle gedoen het as diensknegte vir ons mense en deur hulle nederigheid.

We are told that on that fateful morning before she met her untimely end, Mevrou Maasdorp had arrived at home at 03h30 in the morning having been busy with crucial educator post interviews.

When she wanted to wake up at four to prepare food for her husband he told her not to worry but sleep as she had just arrived. He would prepare his own food. Little did he know that that would have been her final moments and being the person she was, always ready to serve and to help.

This is the calibre of the educators we lost. We must emulate their example of selfless and untiring work, refusing to put off until tomorrow what can be done today.

To express this willing sense of sacrifice so prominent in the ancient African value system of ubuntu, the Bible, (Ecclesiastes 11) advises us to "cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days".

The multitudes that we see here today bear testimony to the fact that these educators did exactly that, they cast their bread upon the waters and we are here to ensure that they get it back.

Therefore be comforted, you who are in grief. Aan die Maasdorp familie, die Beezs en Feris families we have come among you to ask you to respond to this calamity with the strength of the courageous and the hope of the hopeful. Difficult as it may be hear the advice of the ancestors that what has happened is what had to be.

It is particularly saddening because mevrou Maasdorp had earlier on confided in one of the local officials about the danger that these trucks on our roads posed. Sy het gesê eendag gaan die trokke ons almal vermoor.

We have come here today to try to comfort and ease the burden of grief of the Maasdorp, Beezs and Feris families who have been robbed of precious relatives, friends and loved ones by the pitiless hand of death.

These are people who as educators, as leaders both at work and in the communities have undoubtedly made their contribution to the tasks we pursue together of protecting and educating our children and working to provide a better life for all.

This occasion today can never be a solemn ceremony in which we bury our loved ones and bury the truth about the painful circumstances of their death as well.

We cannot undo the damage, but at least we can summon the courage to speak the naked but healing truth that must surely comfort them wherever they may be.

Our presence here demands that we act to ensure that what happened to them should never be repeated again.

Dit beteken dat ons sterk en konsekwent moet reageer om te verseker dat ons paaie veilige plekke vir menselike en ekonomiese aktiwieteite moet word en nie hierdie doodstrikke waarin hulle verander het nie.

It means that we must act firmly and consistently to ensure that our roads become safe places of human and economic activity and not the death traps that they have been turned into.

Our presence here demands that we join in a determined and sustained effort to ensure respect for the dignity of our mothers and our children.

It demands that we defend our democratic order and our human rights with all necessary means so that we are free from hunger and from fear.

It requires that everything we do should focus on advancing the interests of the ordinary man and woman and child in the street.

Fellow mourners, these teachers that we are saluting here today were the only women at the school.

Therefore our presence here today says we must continue to pay tribute to and honour the women patriots and the heroines who continue to serve today in the struggle for the reconstruction and development of our both our province and our country.

Fellow mourners, tomorrow many of us will join billions in our country and across the globe to celebrate Mother's Day. Let us spare a thought for these families that have brought us together here this morning.

To us these educators are our heroes and heroines and heroes such as these that we come to lay to rest are not mourned. For that reason we have gathered here today to salute and celebrate the lives of those whose spirits and positive examples will always be with us.

We mourn and salute these humble and yet great daughters of the Northern Cape because without fanfare, without seeking glory and status they continued to build democracy at the local level in their communities.

We mourn and salute these humble and yet great daughters of Karos Intermediate school because even when at times the obstinate legacy of the past seemed to delay our march to a better tomorrow, they refused to be discouraged, however rough the road may be their eyes and minds were firmly fixed on the destination we defined together.

While our tongues express the sadness of our hearts we will be doing the right thing if all of us in their memory continue to improve our capacity to deliver more infrastructure and essential services to all our people.

In their memory we must together serve our people with dedication, humility and care and strive to give efficient service that helps to change the lives of all our people for the better.

In their memory together let us see and promote the many positive things that they did and continued to do until they met their final moments, living as part of the great effort to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment in our province.

Laat ons ter nagedagtenis aan hulle terugkyk na positiewe dinge wat hulle gedoen het en dit bevorder. Hulle het tot hulle finale oomblikke geleef as deel van die groot poging om armoede en onderontwikkeling in ons provinsie uit te roei.

That we lost them means that we have a task to pursue and embrace the goals they cherished.

Together let us do everything we can to ensure that this tragedy does not visit our people again. The government that you elected, represented by my person, will do everything necessary to ensure that we achieve this result because when we appear to be tall then it is because we are standing on the shoulders of these the departed.

Our dear educators may be no more, they may have passed beyond the vision of our human eye but we will continue to do what they did while they lived.

While they lived, these educators carried on their shoulders, their minds and souls, the burdens of those poor children and their helpless parents as they were forever haunted by the cries of angry despair of those who turned to them for hope.

And while we live they will continue to breathe into all of us the liberating spirit of education and servitude.

Let us in line with our traditions, continue to mark the passing away of those whom we come to bid farewell today with dignity and respect.

Let us allow them therefore to rest in peace in the knowledge that we will consider nothing they sought to be done as done, until it is done. Their dreams including the one of the special school for those unfortunate children will still come to fruition.

As gevolg daarvan, weet almal van ons dat hierdie nie die tyd was om die spesiale onderwysers te verloor wat ons gehad het nie. As gevolg daarvan weet almal van ons dat die ontydige verlies van mevrou Maasdorp, Anna en Rachel en ook mevrou Feris 'n breuk skep in ons voorlyn, wat moeilik gaan wees om te vul.

Because of that all of us know that this was not the time for us to lose the special teachers that we had. Because of that all of us know that the untimely loss of Mevrou Maasdorp, Anna en Rachel as well as Mevrou Feris has created a breach in our forward line that will be difficult to close.

Aan die gesinne en die families verlang ek om julle na Jesaja 43 te verwys, "So sê die Here wat jou gevorm het, moenie bang wees nie, ek verlos jou, ek het jou op jou naam geroep, jy is myne."

"As jy deur water moet gaan is ek by jou, deur riviere, sal hulle jou nie wegspoel nie, as jy deur vuur moet gaan, sal dit jou nie skroei nie, die vlamme sal jou nie brand nie."

"Omdat jy vir my kosbaar is, omdat ek jou hoog ag en jou liefhet, gee ek mense in jou plek."

"Moenie bang wees nie, ek is by jou."

Dames en Here, God sê vandag aan die families van die oorledenes, moenie bang wees nie, ek is by julle.

Julle is kosbaar in my oë, daarom ag ek julle hoog.

Programme Director, I speak for our government and for all our people when I convey our collective gratitude to the inestimable numbers that have come here this morning to pay tribute to our departed educators.

I thank you that you have come from far and wide to join us as we lay the mortal remains of our mothers and sisters, aunts and grandmothers to rest and for the flood of messages of comfort and condolences.

Our thinking brains have etched on our human minds the truth that what is including death, is what is, is what has to be and what could not but come to be.

Lastly I would like to thank you, the families of the deceased, for the dignified manner in which in you have handled yourselves in the face of a very painful loss such as the one you have suffered.

The learners of these four outstanding educators, past and present will be the living monuments which will testify to their greatness and say everything else that needs to be said.

Thank you!

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Northern Cape Provincial Government
12 May 2007