Let me first take this opportunity to congratulate all role players, who ensured that today we have a safety committee here at David Livingstone High School that works closely with the local street committee.
Our sincere gratitude further goes to the Alumni Association of David Livingstone High School, school governing body, National Institute for Crime Prevention and Reintegration of Offenders, South African Police Service (SAPS), Family and Marriage Association of South Africa, Child Line, Foundation for Drug-Free World and Nerina House of Safety for such a fruitful partnership that seeks to build a caring, peaceful and prosperous society.
This is a kind of leadership that we need to provide as community leaders, business, churches, non-governmental organisations and various organs of civil society in order to safeguard the future of our country.
Fortunately, I am from this town and I know the challenges that continue to haunt the community of Schauderville and the entire northern areas of Port Elizabeth, which include, amongst others, drug abuse, gangsterism, high unemployment rate and other social problems that contribute to the increase of criminal activities.
This situation is exacerbated by community violence and criminal activities that affect learning and teaching in local schools, which requires all of us to invest our time on the education of our children and crime that continues to haunt our young democracy.
I regard the today’s event as the beginning of a partnership underpinned by unity of purpose and clear objectives of:
* promoting integrated approach to enhance safety and security in our schools
* mobilising communities to improve the quality of teaching and learning
As provincial government, we have identified the intensification of the fight against crime as one of our top eight priorities, which are in line with the ANC’s manifesto through which we promised to:
* reduce crime in South Africa
* provide free and quality education
We cannot realise these two commitments if we stand on the sidelines and treat our schools like ‘ivory towers’.
Today we are calling upon everybody to join forces with us and help to build the new South Africa that we all aspire to have, which is non-racial, non-sexist, caring, peaceful, democratic and prosperous.
The time has come for us to win back our schools, which have lately become hunting grounds for criminals. Unfortunately, on many occasions our children are either victims or perpetrators of crime in schools and sometimes are being used by adults to commit crime, particularly drug trafficking. We cannot continue to have schools that have turned into ‘drug market places’.
Let us demonstrate our vigilance through strengthening structures such as school safety committees that work closely with school governing bodies, Learner Representative Councils, SAPS, community police forums and sector crime forums.
Their role is to conduct continuous assessment of the schools environment, develop plans and programmes to improve safety and security. They are designed to give all stakeholders an opportunity to build and maintain a culture of peace within schools and communities.
Schools are encouraged to come up with their own programmes that promote peace and help our learners to develop their self-confidence, motivation, desire to participate, mutual respect, improve communication, and build their life skills.
You can even organise sport activities to ensure that learners transform their relationship, manage their anger, speak out about issues, thus becoming part of the solution instead of the problem.
On 13 July 2009, we held Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster (JCPS) programme of action retreat here in Port Elizabeth, which resolved, amongst other things, to ensure that the Department of Safety and Liaison signs a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Education to:
* establish Safer Schools Committees at 53 identified schools and development of integrated crime prevention plans in those schools, which have been plagued by a number of incidents of crime and violence
* strengthen community participation in school safety programmes.
As part of our mass mobilisation strategy against crime, we have already started to launch school safety committees in Ngangelizwe, neighbourhood watches in Duncan Village, and village committees in Mount Ayliff.
Today we are here to launch a school safety committee of a ‘special type’, which is integrated to the activities of the street committee.
This clearly indicates that we do not necessarily need floods of resources, but through putting our minds together and share the ideas and human resources at our disposal, we can defeat what we perceive as ugly and anti-human in our midst–crime.
Despite this indelible achievement, we still need to do more to get our youth involved in crime prevention activities as they are mostly victims or perpetrators of crime. We believe that as leaders of tomorrow, young people should be nurtured and educated about the reconstruction and development agenda of the democratic developmental state.
The Department of Safety and Liaison will soon train 500 volunteers, who will be deployed in various public viewing areas during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This presents an opportunity for our youth to gain knowledge and experience on security management. Who knows? Maybe one day some of them could become members of the SAPS, South African National Defence Force, city police, or even security company owners.
Conclusion
Let us continue to work together as schools and communities in pursuit of peace, security and comfort for all. Let us send a clear message to everyone that we will never tolerate crime in our communities!
I thank you.
Enquiries:
N Kumbaca
Tel: 043 604 7584
Fax: 086 532 4933
E-mail: ncedo.kumbaca@dot.ecprov.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Transport, Eastern Cape Provincial government
25 July 2009
