Department of Social Development Mr Kgaogelo Lekgoro
18 February 2009
Fifteen year ago, we inherited a State department that was designed to serve
the interest of a few and deny service to the majority of our people. Our first
task was to reconstruct and situate the department into an institution that
would be able to provide a safety net for all South Africans who for different
reasons were vulnerable and could not fend for themselves.
The first task we undertook was to transfer social wages to South Africans
of all racial groups who fall in the category of the pensionable elderly,
children whose parents have no income, those living with disability and
children who are orphaned.
This competence was then given over to an independent institution, which
then gave the department enough space to focus on social welfare matters.
We declared in 2004 that we want to turn our province into a home fit for
children to live in. In so doing, we sought to intervene on areas of child
poverty. At that time research had it that 40 percent of children in our
province lived below poverty line.
That is the background against which we conceived the programme Bana Pele.
This programme is an integrated package of interventions from various
government departments directed to fight child poverty.
For us as Social Development we focused on early childhood development
(ECD), offering free school uniform to orphaned children and those receiving
child support grant, to children infected and affected by HIV and AIDS, and
foster care.
Government is funding 575 early childhood development (ECD) sites taking
care of 40 275 children. In the next financial year, our target is to fund 200
new ECD sites taking care of 10 000 more children. This we believe will lay
firm foundations and better prepare children in Gauteng for their school
days.
We have to date offered more than 22 700 children entering grade 1 free
school uniforms. We expect the demand to increase in the next financial year.
This intervention, including the entire package of Bana Pele programme, brings
relieve to the mothers who receive child support grant, because they can then
redirect the money for other important needs of the child.
We have 174 community home-based care sites throughout the province that
cater for children infected and affected by HIV and AIDS, with some among them,
heading households. In these sites, the caregivers receive the children after
school. The children receive meals, helped through homework and enjoy
extramural activities. Come early evening, the kids are taken home with a
package of evening meals. These sites cater for more than 29 000 children. In
the next financial year we will roll out 30 more sites in communities where
there are none.
We have now placed more than 58 800 orphaned and abandoned children under
foster care and continue to place more.
We also declared in 2004 that our province should be a province where the
elderly are allowed to spend the rest of their remaining days in dignity.
As government, we understood well that apartheid, by design, neglected the
black elderly people. That has resulted in massive backlog in regard to homes
for the aged. An ideal situation is when a destitute and or frail elderly
person would retire into a home to allow them to leave the last days of their
lives in dignity.
We have begun to make meaningful intervention in welfare services for the
elderly beyond the pension grant they receive. We take a long term approach in
addressing the backlog on homes for the aged. Government has committed to
incrementally, each financial year, erect one home for the aged in a
township.
We deliberately went out to identify ten homes that were in a bad physical
state and had no proper equipment. We have helped renovate such and will
continue to put in proper equipment where necessary.
We will also establish day care centres to enable the elderly to spend their
day meaningfully away from solitary life and boredom at home when the young are
going about their daily business.
Alcohol and dagga remain the most abused substances in our province, with
alcohol the highest. On daily basis the South African Brewery (SAB) delivers
thousands of litres of alcohol substance in our townships. Every second
billboard in the townships advertises one form of alcohol substance. Taverns
and so-called shebeens are mushrooming literally in every street of the
townships.
The social crimes that occur during weekends, the abuse of children, women
and the elderly are a direct consequence of the abuse of alcohol in the
townships. The abuse of alcohol devastates families.
Following the government's drug master plan, we are establishing local drug
committees to enable communities to deal with this scourge. We need communities
themselves to put a halt to this. We hope as and when these committees take
root, we will be able to together counter this unregulated flow of alcohol in
our township.
We are also erecting two treatment centres for victims of substance abuse in
Metsweding and Lesedi municipalities. We have planned to erect three others
over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
We continue to do work in areas of people living with disability, women
facing abusive situations, children in conflict with the law, poverty
alleviation projects in the community development centres and psycho social
support.
For more information, contact:
Fred Mokoko
Issued by: Department of Social Development, Gauteng Provincial
Government
18 February 2009
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government (http://www.gautengonline.gov.za)
