The Deputy Minister of Public Works, Ms Ipeleng Henrietta Bogopane-Zulu, will, as part of the Mandela Day celebrations, join the children at Prinshoff School for the Visually Impaired (Pretoria Central) and the Leamogetswe Place of Safety (Atteridgeville) on Monday, 20 July 2009 from 9:00.
Herself a visually impaired person and a community activist of note, the deputy minister has been instrumental in reviving and driving the corporate social responsibility programme of the department, particularly for the benefit of the children and consequently had the Department of Public Works (DPW) to adopt in 2009 the Leamogetswe Children’s Home and Prinshof School for the Visually Impaired 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.
It is against this backdrop, that the deputy minister integrated her previous community upliftment by choosing the two schools as part of what she will be doing in her aspirations to culminate her ‘Making Schools to Work Campaign Programme’.
The deputy minister was working with the department to raise necessary resources to assist Leamogetswe with roofing of the built structure so as to increase accommodation needs for the children as well as security fencing for the safety of the children and to stem further incidents of burglary. Access facilities also needed to be improved for the children using wheelchairs.
At Prinshof, the deputy minister has committed to assist the school with security wall following recent incidents of trespass which exposed the children to strangers.
According to the deputy minister, “the reason for the DPW to decide on assisting Leamogetswe and Prinshof was based on the contribution that these centres are making in the lives of the abused, neglected, abandoned children and most importantly to the improvement of the lives of children with disabilities. This was also in line with addressing the imperative connections between violence against women, children, and HIV/AIDS pandemic.”
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 cooperating with the Department of Education art of the Presidential Apex Priority projects, to identify rural schools built with mud and other inadequate material for eradication and rebuilding.
Contact:
Koketso Sachane
Cell: 082 728 8836
Lucky Mochalibane
Cell: 082 880 4027
Issued By: Department of Public Works
17 July 2009
