Care centre accused of cult brainwashing

SOME parents of the 60 children at the Amitofo Care Centre believe their children are being brainwashed by a Chinese Buddhist cult.

Amitofo, about 10 kilometres outside Okahandja, started operating in November 2015. The founders of the centre initially tried to register it as a shelter for orphans and vulnerable children, but the gender equality ministry turned their application down for not meeting the standards for a childcare facility.

In 2016, the centre was registered as a primary school with the education ministry, and currently offers pre-primary and Grade 1 classes.

The Namibian visited the centre last week, and learned that pupils were taught to pray in Mandarin, the main language spoken in China. The children and teachers are banned from eating meat and garlic, and are on a strict Chinese diet. Discipline, focus and perseverance are taught.

We arrived at around 11h00, and the Grade 1 class was still being taught, while the pre-primary pupils were already out.

We asked two of the girls, aged about four or five and in pre-primary, their names. One introduced herself as Ru Zhu, while the other shouted Ru Nao. We also asked them to pray in Mandarin, which they did.

We spoke to a former teacher Sarah* (not her real name) of the school.

“I don’t want to start any problems for the centre or anyone, but my conscience cannot let me keep this to myself. I have to say something,” said Sarah, whom we met at a coffee shop at Okahandja.

She said she was approached by the headmaster to teach at the centre. She was excited as she was passionate about teaching, until she saw what was going on at the centre.

“I could not take it anymore that those children are being brainwashed, and it’s as if they are being trained into becoming little Chinese soldiers. The children wake up as early as 04h00, and at 05h00 they go and pray at the Buddha statue in the hall.

“They pray in Mandarin, and are told Jesus is not a real god, and that he is a stick, and they should not pray to him. This is a cult. How can they want to change the children’s mindsets like that?” the former teacher asked.

She said when she joined the school, she was told to adopt a Chinese diet that did not include meat or garlic.

“The children there are forced to eat the food. Everything about that school is wrong. The children don’t even play like children; they are most of their play time in kung-fu training. If not, they are meditating. What does a Namibian four- or five-year-old understand about meditating?” she asked.

In a telephonic interview, Amitofo’s spokesperson Rickey Tjijenda addressed these issues.

“Well, if this was happening, then it must be the volunteers at the centre who are teaching the children these things, but we at Amitofo are busy working on them. About the children praying in Mandarin, well, when the volunteers go to the hall to pray, they ask the children to do so. We received complaints that when these children go home to their parents, they don’t pray with their families anymore, and there are conflicts in culture. We have stopped that,” Tjijenda said.

He confirmed that the centre was denied childcare facility status by the gender equality ministry because it did not meet the home-like environment standard.

The registrar of residential childcare facilities at the gender equality ministry, Amelia Musikumbili, also confirmed this to The Namibian.

“I cannot really go into the whole thing, but all I can say at this point is that one of the many standards they did not meet was the family structure atmosphere. They wanted to enrol 500 children, and the reasons they gave were impossible for us to approve.

“We also looked at the dietary proposal, and there they also did not meet the standard. According to our standards, children must be provided with a nutritious, balanced and culturally sensitive diet, and this unfortunately did not come through,” Musikumbili stressed.

She added that the fact that there were Buddha statues in every room, halls and dining hall, had concerned the ministry.

The mother of a five-year-old removed her child at the beginning of this year after the school refused to let the parents visit, or for him to go home. She also asked not to be named.

“I was having financial difficulties, and a woman in our area introduced me to this school. It all sounded very legit at the beginning, and I sent my son to that school. Since last year, he was there.

“But every time we asked the school management to visit, there were always excuses. One time, we asked to pick him up because his siblings missed him; but they refused again.

“For me, that did not sit well. I went there to enquire, and I was treated as if I was my son’s enemy. They told me I can only see him in December. How can I stay without my son for 11 months if he is only 10km away from me?” the mother asked.

She said that caused her to remove her son from this school, saying the only good thing she could see the school as having taught her son was the kung-fu.

“But there is a change in him also. He is very serious, like a soldier. We are a Christian family, and when we pray, he doesn’t pray. He tells us straight that he prays to Buddha, and it’s because of Buddha that we are alive.

Amitofo’s Tjijenda said they would allow the children to visit their parents, but just not immediately, “becasue we want the children to get used to the routine here at the centre, and adapt to the environment. Once that is in place, the parents are free to take the children for weekends and school holidays. That must just have been a misunderstanding”.

Tjijenda also touched on the diet issue, and said because the donors of Amitofo are Buddhists, the school had to follow and adhere to their beliefs.

“They don’t believe in killing animals, although they eat what comes out of the animal, like the egg of the chicken and the milk from the cow, but not the cow. The children and the employees of Amitofo are welcome to eat anything they want outside the premises,” Tjijenda added.

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.