The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) Social Sector will on 9 April 2014 report back on the number of job opportunities it has created over the past five years.
The report will be tabled during a three-day conference attended by social sector government departments, including Health, Basic Education, Public Works, Community Safety and Liaison as well as the Independent Development Trust.
The EPWP is an important part of government’s strategy to reduce unemployment in the country.
The selected theme for the Conference is “United in action to accelerate employment creation through EPWP social sector”. The Conference itself signifies the end of the EPWP Phase II – which started in April 2009 with an objective to create 4.5 million work opportunities. Of these, 750 000 were expected to be created by the social sector between 2009 and 2014.
The EPWP Social Sector provides work opportunities to unemployed and unskilled people through the delivery of social development and community protection services such as Early Childhood Development, Home Community Based Care, School Nutrition Programme, Community Crime Prevention, School Mass Participation (encouraging participation in sports) and Kha Ri Gude (let us learn), a mass literacy campaign.
Members of the social sector will also use the Conference, importantly, to share experiences of the past five years and identify new areas of expansion that can improve the sector’s contribution to the country’s employment targets. These inputs will inform the social sector’s action plans for the EPWP Phase III (2014 – 2019), which has an overall target of 6 million work opportunities.
Minister for Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, will address the Conference on April 9. The details of the Conference are as follows:
Date: 9 to 11 April 2014
Place: The President Hotel, Bloemfontein, Free State Province
Time: 08h30 daily
Media RSVPs may be directed to Jaconia Kobue at jaconiak@dsd.gov.za / 073 026 1111 or Ms Lesego Moretlwe at Lesego.Moretlwe@dpw.gov.za
Media enquiries may be directed to:
- Social Development – Ms Lumka Oliphant at lumkao@dsd.gov.za or 083 484 8067
- Public Works – Ms Kgomotso Mathuloe at Kgomotso.Mathuloe@dpw.gov.za
