Amersfoort – Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has thanked school teachers for playing an important role in the lives of children. She said this as South Africa marked the Child Protection Week campaign.
“All of the time when we talk about our officials, we talk about care givers, social workers and others. Teachers are playing a very important role in the lives of our children. They look after them, they identified those that are poor and those that don’t stay with their parents,” Minister Dlamini said.
The minister on Saturday hosted the closing event of Child Protection Week campaign at Ezamokuhle Stadium in Mpumalanga.
The Child Protection Week, from 29 May 2016, was held under the theme ‘Let Us All Protect Children to Move South Africa Forward.”
Speaking to SAnews, Minister Dlamini said that the week was intense, where the department focussed on children’s issues.
She said that during the week the department had an opportunity to visit various communities across the country including farming communities, and they were able to identify some of the main issues affecting children.
“What’s good is that children spoke on their own and they understand their rights. In farming areas we were focussing on child labour, which is a very strong disease. We also focussed on trafficking because it also takes place in such areas.
“In previous event, bullying was identified by the kids and the way they define bullying is distinct. It assisted some of us to understand that we are not doing enough to deal with bullying. They said it erodes your inner strength,” said Minister Dlamini.
The also saw positive outcomes as the department managed to remove parents in one area, who were abusing their kids. The department also intervened in a family where a member was abusing the Child Support Grant.
The Minister also used the occasion to thank the communities for taking care of orphaned children in their areas.
“With our communities kids are not treated as orphans. The next of kin looks after the kids that lose their parents and we are very happy about that, its part of our culture, which is part of Ubuntu.”
She said the department wants to improve the services centres in Amersfoort because they’ve found out that social workers only come twice a week and cant visit families and other stakeholders.
“We would be living a group to stay here for a month to do door to door to ensure that people access government services. We want to ensure that we instil confidence in our social workers, and we want them to think out of the box because there are many challenges that are facing our communities that were not here before.”
UNICEF SA’s Chief Child Protection Specialist, Dan Rono stressed out that child protection week has ended but child protection is not ending.
“We still have a long way to go to ensure that all children are protected,” said Rono.
Prior to the main event, the Minister visited Vulamehlo Pre-School and handed over a cheque of R514 800 to be spent on four quarters. – SAnews.gov.za
