Chairperson;
Director-General, Mr Alec Moemi;
All Members of the Advisory Committee;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Welcome to our inaugural Meeting of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Recreation in the history of the Republic of South Africa.Ladies and Gentlemen, on 14 January 2011, the Strategic Planning Session of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) together with all the Members of the Executive Councils (MECs) in the Republic as well as the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) and all our National Federations (NF’s) observed that the application of recreation in South Africa as one of the components of SRSA’s work has been undervalued and under-represented especially in the application of our policy measures. There is a need to strengthen this leg of our core mandate, and our department has resolved to among other things to embark on the following:
- “To vigorously mobilise all resources from local companies, multi-national companies and foreign AID to build multi-purpose Centers in 2011/12.
- “To unlock resources within Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) to address the collapsing and absent facilities and infrastructure for recreation in most communities, especially rural areas.
- “To appoint a Ministerial Committee comprising of experts, academics and practitioners in the field of Recreation to advise on conceptual perspective of this field and appropriate interventions by July 2011”.
In November 2011, the National Sport and Recreation Indaba adopted the National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) which is 20/20 vision of SRSA in terms of delivery framework for sport and recreation in South Africa.We agreed that our National Sport and Recreation Plan will be an eight year sustainable implementation plan for the sport and recreation policy framework as captured in the White Paper on Sport and Recreation.The National Sport and Recreation Plan will be closely monitored annually to identify any hindrances which may negatively impact on implementation and will be reviewed in its totality in 2020.
In this process of the implementation of the NSRP it is envisaged that Recreation will for the first time also receive priority in terms of conceptualisation and implementation of our sport and recreation agenda.
This will enable us to elevate Recreation into higher heights whilst promoting sport in order to realise our objectives of both an ‘active’ and ‘winning’ nation.It is worth mentioning that the nucleus of the National Sport and Recreation Plan provides details of the three core pillars of implementation, namely an active nation; a winning nation and the enabling environment required.In addressing the enablers due consideration was given to the history of the Republic of South Africa and the importance of addressing the imbalances that are still imperative in our society including in Recreation.This committee will also help us to acutely locate recreation in the context of the pillar of an enabling environment as well as on the pillar of an active nation. These pillars are underpinned by transversal issues such as transformation and utilising sport and recreation to achieve national goals and global priorities putting recreation at the centre of such issues.
It is therefore a great honour and privilege for me to welcome you to this august gathering of the Ministerial Committee on Recreation.This is our first meeting of the Ministerial Committee which we announced its appointment in our Budget Vote Speech in Parliament of the Republic in May this year.Every opinion is welcomed and I believe you will use all available resources at your disposal and that of the Department to make our work a success.
When announcing the appointment of this capable team in our Budget Vote 2012, we said the role of this committee will be, (but not limited to) to research on the best practice in recreation and recreation delivery, norms and standards on the delivery, management and maintenance of recreational facilities as well as advising the Ministry on best way to administer and manage both sport and recreation in South Africa.
It is our intention not to philosophise our work on recreation.We are fully aware of the on-going debates about ‘what recreation is about, especially, in relation to sport’?Whether there is a symbiotic link between ‘recreation and sport’; and whether sport is recreation and vice versa?These might be necessary questions to answer at the beginning of our work; but; I do not think this should pre-occupy the entire work of the Advisory Committee on Recreation.As said above our pre-occupation should be to conduct a qualitative and quantitative scientific research about recreation in South Africa; looking at the best practice in South Africa, Africa and the world.The best practice should be in areas of delivery mechanisms of recreation as well as to look at the norms and standards for the delivery, management and maintenance of recreational facilities.The starting point is that all the members of the committee should familarise themselves with the revised SRSA Facilities Framework document which could be accessed from SRSA Website or SRSA Facilities’ Unit.
The Australian Sports and Recreation Policy outline that:
“Sport (and Recreation) is important for more than just reasons of national pride, or even as a way of building a fitter, more vibrant nation. Sport (and Recreation) reaches across our society in ways which are not always apparent, and involves even those who profess no love of sport (and Recreation).Sport and recreation are major components of the national economy, be it through employment in the sport and recreation industry (75,155 people in 2006), sales of goods and services both domestically and internationally and small business development.In 2004-05, the total income generated by the sport and recreation industry in Australia was estimated at $8.82 billion. The income reported by sports and physical recreation clubs, teams and sports professionals was $1.88 billion and sports and physical recreation administrative organisations was $1.53 billion.Sport (and Recreation) is also a powerful tool for international engagement. We must not overlook the importance of sport in tourism, aid and trade”.
Thus, we believe in your capable abilities to assist our government to be on par with other nations like Australia and others elsewhere in the world that have traversed this road many years ago.Like many developed countries South Africa has the ability and capability and the will to bring about unorthodox ways of delivering recreation to all our people particularly those people from historically disadvantaged backgrounds and neglected communities especially our townships and rural areas.
Scholars and Historians in the field of theories of recreation, leisure and family lifecycle suggests that recreation and leisure is widely recognised as an increasingly significant component of life in our modern society and that it has for sometime been given serious attention by sociologists and variety of social commentators and planners.The question we should answer, is this scenario the case in South Africa?Is recreation part of the overall lifecycle of the majority of South Africans, if not, why?If yes, what are the subjective and objective realities about recreation and leisure in South Africa?
This will help us to engage with the ‘classical and modern theories’ of recreation.This exercise should among others assist us to understand the people’s preoccupations at different stages of the lifecycle, especially looking at holidays, hobbies, and institutionalised recreation, in terms of contemporary changes in society, including the use of physical education.
As we all know over the past 18 years our government have been preoccupied with the transformation of the state and society, sport and recreation included.But in that process of transformation of society, recreation has been not receiving any meaningful attention.This process has been a vigorous process of transformation which included a new Constitution of the Republic and other discriminatory and racist laws of the Apartheid state in order to ensure the emergence of a democratic society based on principles of unity, democracy, non-racialism and non-sexism as well as laws to integrate all vulnerable groups of our society.
The absence of a coherent and concrete national sport and recreation plan became the hindrance to a tailored programme to transform both sport and recreation landscape in South Africa.The adoption of the National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) has opened a window of opportunity for the developmental state to interrogate its policies in areas of recreation, leisure and family life.One of those is our by-laws at local government level; whether they assist us to promote quality recreation, leisure and sustainable family life.In the same token, the absence of a coherent and concrete plan for recreation at national level to utilise the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) is another cause for concern especially on issues of providing the requisite facilities for community recreation, leisure and family interaction in a form of indoor and outdoor activities.
Therefore, this committee will, as from today, be faced by the whole range of issues in their work in order to advise the Ministry on many pressing matters in recreation.We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone in this room for accepting our invitation to serve in this committee and for your selfless commitment to the Republic of South Africa.
We hope for the next coming months we will work together to achieve our stated goals to put in place a new recreation discourse in South Africa.
SRSA will provide you with all necessary and requisite support from secretariat and research support so that you can deliver on your mandate.
Thank you.
