The Deputy Minister of Public Works, Ms Ipeleng Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, MP today joined the children at Prinshof School for Visually Impaired Pretoria Central and the Leamogetswe Place of Safety (Atteridgeville) as part of the Mandela Day celebrations.
Herself a visually impaired person and a community activist of note, the Deputy Minister has been instrumental in reviving and driving the community outreach programme of the department, focusing it for the benefit of the disabled and orphaned children and consequently had the Department of Public Works committing almost R2 million for the renovations at the Leamogetswe Children’s Home plus or minus R593 000 and Prinshof School for Visually Impaired plus or minus R1,4 million with a view to contributing to the national government plan of action on protecting the rights of children and ending violence against women and children.
Joined by the Principal of Prinshof, Ms Liana Joubert, the Deputy Minister announced that the national Department of Public Works will rely on its constitutional mandate of and competency to, manage immoveable assets of the state, to reach out to the two centres by renovating their infrastructure.
“From its inner city regeneration budget, the Department of Public Works will use its own technical workforce to repair the bathrooms at Prinshof as well as extend the infrastructure at Leamogetswe Home to increase the carrying capacity of the home originally meant to house 32 children but today was accommodating about 60 children with ages varying from 0 to 18.
“Today the home accommodates 60 children of whom most was abandoned as a result of disability, HIV and AIDS and the police were unable to trace their parents. As such the home needs assistance with roofing of the built structure so as to increase accommodation needs for the children. It was also reported that the home has experienced incidents of burglary in the past and accordingly needs security fencing for the safety of the children. Technical assessment was also done for possible physical accessibility around the home for the children who use wheelchairs,” explained Ms Bogopane-Zulu.
In the case of Prinshof, the department will undertake the reparations of the bathrooms which the principal described as health hazard for this institution and it was first opened its doors in 1963 but had become a daily maintenance crisis centre due to aging equipment.
According to the Deputy Minister, the adoption of the two centres was motivated by the fact that the Department of Public Works through the Deputy Minister’s office needed to be involved in community development. This was also in line with addressing the imperative connections between violence against women, children and HIV and AIDS pandemic.
It is against this backdrop, that the Deputy Minister integrated her previous community upliftment experience by choosing the two establishments as part her aspirations to contribute to her making schools to work campaign programme”
Public Works is one of the infrastructure departments of government and has been using its core technical competence since 1994 to contribute to poverty alleviation and social development by bequeathing basic but essential infrastructure including classrooms and crèches to deserving communities.
Since 2007, the department through one of its public entities, the Independent Development Trust (IDT), has been co-operating with the Department of Education as apart of the presidential apex priority projects, to identify rural schools built with mud and other inadequate material for eradication and rebuilding.
Enquiries:
Koketso Sachane
Cell: 082 728 8836
Lucky Mochalibane
Cell: 082 880 4027
Issued by: Department of Public Works
20 July 2009
