The Social Development portfolio will this month engage on various community outreach programmes mainly focusing on social security, active ageing and child headed households.
The programmes will also address social ills such as gender-based violence, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, human trafficking and homelessness.
Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said that during this month the department will also showcase the various services that it renders in various districts and metropolitan municipalities and communities throughout the country.
“I am also going to conduct an Imbizo where, together with the Deputy Minister and senior programme managers, I will be having conversations with ordinary South Africans on various issues that are relevant to the Social Development mandate,” Minister Zulu said.
The Minister was providing the programme for the Social Development Month during a media briefing held in Pretoria on Monday.
October is Social Development Month and this year’s commemoration is taking place under the theme “United in the Fight Against Poverty and Other Social ills”.
Pursuant of the 2022 Social Development Month, the Minister said that the relevant programmes are expected to prioritise and resource implementation through each of the country’s 52 district and metropolitan municipalities.
Because social development is about the people, Minister Zulu said the success of this year’s programme will be evident in the portfolio’s interventions as follows:
resonating with the priorities of the people in the communities where they are being carried out (in other words, active citizenship is the key ingredient because there is nothing about the people without the people.
being relevant to the communities where they are being implemented while also being responsive to the felt needs of these communities; and
the deployment of programmes pursuant of this year’s Social Development Month must mark the material shift and realisation of the One District, One Budget and One Plan in the fifty-two district and metropolitan municipalities (in other words, the resources for the implementation of the relevant programmes must shift to the concerned municipalities).
As a build-up to the Presidential Summit on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide that is taking place next month, the portfolio will, working together with civil society organisations, be conducting a series of interactive public conversations.
“This will be in line with our implementation of Pillar 4 of the GBVF National Strategic Plan which focuses on the provision and strengthening of an integrated community and institutional response, care, support and healing to GBVF survivors and their families,” Minister Zulu said.
The Social Development Month takes place during the month when the country is also commemorating Mental Health Month.
This is the month wherein the global community is also observing the International Day for Older Persons; the World Food Day; the World Rural Women’s Day; and the International Day of the Eradication of Poverty.
“It is against this backdrop that we are urging for the necessary resources to be entrusted to the district and metropolitan municipality sphere of government for them to, owing to their proximity to the people, attend to these and related social challenges.
“In support of our society’s socio-economic reconstruction and recovery following the series of social, health and climate change shocks, we affirm our support of programmes and people-public-private-civic-academic-multilateral partnerships that are carried out towards the full realisation of the capabilities and prospects of each and every South African,” Minister Zulu said.
Still this month, the portfolio will also host the Shelter Indaba to engage and highlight the importance of protecting women against gender-based violence and femicide.
“We will close the month by hosting the annual Active Ageing Week, aimed at ensuring that our senior citizens lead active and productive lives. Active Ageing is a year-long programme,” the Minister said.
Source: South African Government News Agency