The Minister of Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, will visit Bulwer community, Kwa-Zulu Natal Province, to address the prevalence of teenage pregnancy in the area. Recent community dialogues conducted in the area have revealed that teenage pregnancy is a major social challenge in the area.
Statistics South Africa’s 2013 Household Survey Report showed that 7, 8 percent of South African girls between ages of 7 and 18 years were not attending any educational institution and cited pregnancy as a reason for high levels of school dropouts.
Minister Dlamini is taking this opportunity to introduce Phase Two of Project Mikondzo which seeks to increase the pace of service delivery in the poorest 1 700 wards in the country. The first phase of Project Mikondzo concentrated largely on identifying service delivery gaps in the 1 300 wards which were identified by Cabinet as a priority. The second phase will be looking at mobilisation and integration of national, provincial and local government resources for delivery of services to the poorest communities.
Bulwer community is one of the 1 700 wards targeted for development and improvement through Phase Two of Project Mikondzo.
A preliminary report on Project Mikondzo was recently presented to MINMEC meeting by the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Professor Pearl Sithole. In her presentation, Prof. Sithole defined Project Mikondzo as a tool to assess whether communities understand the Department of Social Development as a product.
“Through research, Project Mikondzo has established that as a country we are not naïve in the welfarist, social protection approaches that we have adopted, and that there is a concerted effort to balance social protection measures with a developmental approach.” University of Kwa-Zulu Natal is a research partner of Social Development in Project Mikondzo.
Members of the media are invited to attend the event which will take place as follows:
Date: Friday, 29 August 2014
Time: 12h00
Venue: Pholela High School Sports Ground
For media RSVPs:
Jaconia Kobue
Cell: 073 026 1111
E-mail: JaconiaK@dsd.gov.za
Media enquiries:
Lumka Oliphant
Cell: 083 484 8067
E-mail: LumkaO@dsd.gov.za
