The following is merely a selection of some of our key activities and achievements.

Children’s participation project – allowing children’s voices to be heard

This was one of ACESS’s first projects. It involved workshops across the country through which poor children shared their experiences and needs – from a socio-economic rights perspective – with ACESS. The workshops were designed to allow children to participate in the social security review and recommendation process spearheaded by the Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive Social Security System for South Africa. A report documenting the input by the children was widely shared with decision makers and stakeholders. This allowed for children to be heard on the shape of our future social security system and on their needs in relation to such a system right at the beginning of the policy review and revision process.

The development of a constructive working partnership with the Department of Social Development at national level to work together towards improving children’s lives

The development of joint literacy products
ACESS, Soul City and the Department of Social Development developed and shared the cost of reprinting a further 200 000 grants booklets in all 11 languages in 2004/5. Through our proactive distribution strategy and the reach of our members, we have thus far (since delivery of the revised booklets in about May 2005) distributed almost 50 000 booklets, and continue to distribute more on a daily basis as the order forms come into ACESS’s office. ACESS has sought to build a number of strategic partnerships to facilitate the distribution of the booklets to communities and within sectors and disciplines where there is a pronounced need for this information. We have for example worked closely with TAC which has taken 5 000 booklets, the faith based organisations through the SACC which has taken 2 500 booklets, and ARK which has taken 4 000 booklets.

Fostered multi-departmental and civil society working arrangements
Through the jamborees we developed a cooperative multi-departmental model of service delivery around social security. The different departments which worked together as a collective unit at the jamborees were social development, home affairs, the South African Police services and civil society. These models continue to be used and duplicated in the areas that the jamborees were hosted.

Facilitated a focus group meeting between the Department of Social Development and key partners around key policy gaps around social assistance and social relief of distress (SROD)
The objective of meeting, at the Department’s behest, to open a regular channel of communication, through the alliance structure, with civil society on pertinent issues. The focus group meeting took place on 1 and 2 September 2005.

Submissions to parliament
May 2001
Comment to the Department of Social Development on the proposed amendments to the regulations to the Social Assistance Act

May 2002
Submission to the South African Law Commission on the review of the Child Care Act discussion paper

May 2002
Presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Social Development on the child participation process and input

June 2002
Submission to the Department of Social Development on the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive Social Security System

November 2002
Submission to the portfolio Committee on Social Development on the Committee Report

June 2003
Submission to the portfolio Committee on Social Development on the Taylor Committee Report. Facilitated the input of some of ACESS’s grass roots members by bringing them down to Cape Town and hosting a training / development workshop before the hearings. This allowed grassroots/community based members with real and relevant stories to tell their stories.

September 2003
ACESS submission on the Social Assistance Bill

July 2004
ACESS submission on the Chidlren’s Bill – S 75. In June 2005 the Section 75 Children’s Bill was passed by the National Assembly. The key provisions in the Children’s Bill include:

• An obligation on all government departments to take reasonable measures to the maximum extent of their available resources to achieve the Bill’s objectives (hence promoting a comprehensive integrated response) to the well being of children.
• Specific provisions for children with disabilities.
• Specific provisions for children on in need of care and protection.

November 2004
More than a year after the publication of the National Plan of Action, the Department of Education released the Education Laws Amendment Bill to give effect to some of its NPOA recommendations. ACESS hosted an education sector workshop in 2004 shortly before the release of this Bill to explore civil society’s responses to the adequacy of the NPOA recommendations and related matters. After publication of the Bill, ACESS responded to the recommendation through a joint ACESS/Education Law Project (WITS/CALS) press release, and through a submission drafted by CALS, incorporating the key ACESS concerns aired at the earlier workshop and at prior education working group meetings which included a CALS representative and other ACESS members. The latter CALS submission was accordingly endorsed by ACESS.

January 2005
The Department released its Draft Amendments to the Standards and Norms for School Funding, which sought to add more detail to the commitments in the NPOA and the Education Laws Amendment Bill. CALS once again drafted a submission in response to this Draft, incorporating ACESS’s comments and inputs, which ACESS accordingly endorsed. Following on these documents, the Department released its Draft Regulations for the exemption of parents from the payment of school fees. Once again ACESS endorsed a submission drafted by CALS (through a joint ACESS/CALS consultation process). In addition, ACESS put out a press release in response to the recommendations in the Draft regulations.

February 2005
The Department of Social Development released draft regulations to the Social Assistance Act at the end of February 2005. They allowed a very short time for public comment. Within the time available to ACESS developed a draft submission in response to the regulations. We shared this with our members and asked them to comment and input into the draft submission. We also urged member organisations to use the submission, together with their organisation’s direct experiences, to develop and make their own written and oral submissions. All member’s comments were incorporated into the ACESS submission which was formally endorsed by the Gender Advocacy programme, The Centre for Applied Legal Studies, Women on Farms, The Legal Resources Centre, the Black Sash, the BIG coalition, COSATU and TAC.

June 2005
The Department released its “Draft National Guidelines on School Uniforms…”. This was published and a call was made for comments. With very short notice available to those who wished to make a submission ACESS developed a very short draft submission which was shared with members with the request that they share any further comments and concerns with us, whereafter we drafted a very brief final submission which was sent to the Department of Education in June 2005.

August 2005
Joint ACESS/CALS submission on the latest draft Education Laws Amendment Bill. In addition ACESS updated its members on the process ahead of the hearings and facilitated the inputting of at least three other submissions by member organizations.

Provincial workshops – 2002
ACESS hosted a workshop in each of our nine provinces to share information with our existing and new members about children’s grants and to get their input into the development of ACESS’s key demands and advocacy messages

National workshop - 2003
In June 2003 ACESS hosted a joint national workshop of all its members (who had grown by at least 100% since the provincial workshops), to share the organization’s programme and organizational development with members and get their direct input into both. At this meeting our Steering Committee was voted in.

Invitations to ACESS to participate in the Department’s policy review of its Social Assistance Act and the setting up of the Social Security Agency
The Department of Social development started reviewing some of its key social development laws in 2003 / 2004 and invited ACESS members to participate in that process through a number of small meetings. Two of these processes were around its Social Assistance Act and the setting up the legal framework for its Social Security Agency.

Extension of the CSG to 18
ANC national conference and petition toward the extension of the CSG to 14
ACESS’s ongoing and active campaign for the extension fo the CSG to 18 reached a high point when we held a public demonstration at the venue of the ANC national conference in 2002. We chose this opportunity to highlight the demand for the extension of the CSG to 18 and to put the case for the extension directly to the ANC delegates attending the conference. This event received national television coverage and culminated in the handing over of a petition in support of our demand to the Minister of Social Development.

Extension of the CSG to 14
Shortly after the ANC national conference, our protracted advocacy efforts paid off as in February 2003 government announced it would be extending the CSG to 14, phased in over three years. ACESS believes that we were at the forefront of this development.

Extension to 18 campaign continues
Having won the extension to 14, our advocacy around this continues to get it extended to all children up to 18. This has been sought through meetings with the Department, fact sheets such as the value of extending the CSG to 18 as a poverty remedy and as a valuable support to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and through the ongoing Children’s Bill parliamentary process. This matter has remained on the agenda and the call has been taken up by other key agencies such as the South African Human Rights Commission.
The Department announced through one of its officials in 2004 that it had plans to extend to 18, and this was recently again discussed at the Social Development Portfolio Committee level.

In 2005 we placed two newspaper adverts on Mother’s Day calling for the extension of the CSG to 18, we circulated a petition calling for the extension of the CSG to 18 and have in the space of three short months already collected, through our member organizations, in excess of 10 000 signatures.

The call for a comprehensive social security solution for children
On Youth Day – June 16 2005 – ACESS hosted an event in Athlone Cape Town which was attended by about 4000 people. The day was marked by key community, faith based and political leaders talking about and calling for an adequate comprehensive solution for vulnerable children, with a focus on the extension of the CSG to 18 and free education. We also circulated information about children’s socio-economic rights and how to access them, and the limits on what is currently available through information tables set up for the day.

On 17 October 2005 – the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty – ACESS coordinated a national call for action to be taken forward in all the provinces by our members. ACESS member organizations in 8 out of the 9 provinces convened meetings between an ACESS delegation of provincial members and key government representatives to hand over a memorandum of concern calling for a comprehensive package for all vulnerable children. Some provinces arranged this meeting alongside press conferences and visible demonstrations of support for the call in the way of a human chain in one instance and marches in other provinces.

Provincial workshops – 2005/2006
IN 2005 ACESS started its series of provincial review and strategy workshops. We have thus far held one in the North West Province and one in the Eastern Cape an done will be taking place in the Free State in November 2005. All provincial members are invited to attend and ACESS has invited the various provincial government departments responsible for providing the various components of the comprehensive package to attend. The government departments have attended and provided information of relevant provincial policies and practices and members have had an opportunity to engage in discussion with the departmental reps, where after members formed themselves into commissions coinciding with the components of the package to review and make recommendations for an improved system. In the Norrth West 87 member organizations attended and in the Eastern Cape, 30 member organizations attended.

Children made more vulnerable by HIV/AIDS
Child headed households / households without adult caregivers
This was a focus area for ACESS over the 2003 to 2004 period. It is a particularly prevalent problem in the light of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The problem is that without an adult caregiver, children in these homes can’t access grants, and other services and benefits.
Through our media and direct advocacy we put the matter on the political and public agenda, and led to a great extent to government’s recognition of the problem and the promise to resolve it in 2004. Key activities for ACESS included a workshop in 2004, widespread distribution of the workshop report and recommendations, and the presentation of the workshop report and recommendations to the Portfolio Committee.

Joint workshop on the comprehensive social security needs of children made more vulnerable by HIV/AIDS
In August 2005 ACESS, IDASA and the SANAC children’s sector network convened a workshop of key civil society role players active in promoting the well being of children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. It became apparent from the presentations and updates provided at the workshop that this group of children is in urgent need of comprehensive care. This workshop was the first step in bringing together the different disciplines / groupings working on different aspects of care for this group of vulnerable children, to work out a common and agreed agenda and develop joint strategies toward realizing the desired solution – a comprehensive package made up of appropriate grants, access to education, access to adequate health care, access to adequate nutrition and basic services such as water and sanitation. ACESS will be taking forward the realization of the agreed agenda through its members in its 2005 and 2006 plan of action.

ACESS’s strategic positioning
ACESS has through its campaigns and activities, and its reach within the country and throughout the children’s sectors, been selected to sit on TAC’s national executive committee as the children’s sector representative, and also been selected to sit on a reference group to the SANAC children’s sector representative. In addition we are on the BIG national coalition’s NEC as well.

Monitoring of the implementation of the extension of the CSG to 9 and 11
ACESS. Together with one of its key partners, the Children’s Institute, monitored the implementation of the extension of the CSG to 14 through a phone-in complaints line. The results of that monitoring exercise was published in a report which made a number of recommendations to avoid the problems identified, which was shared with the Department of Social Development.

Training manual and Training the trainer workshop and follow up successes – N West and Gauteng
ACESS has developed a training manual – premised on a train-the-trainer. It currently consiste of three chapters: 1) Social grants, 2) the right education, and 3) legal remedies to enforce one’s rights to social security and how to use them. Training of ACESS members has taken place in all nine provinces and these members have then taken that training and information further into their communities and amongst other NGO’s.

Review of the definition of disability
ACESS hosted a workshop amongst the children’s disability sector in 2004 to review social security available for children living with disabilities. In 2005 the Department invited ACESS to participate in a meeting convened to review the ambit of the Care Dependency Grant. The recommendations made at the 2003 workshop were introduced and advocated by various disability sector representatives who are ACESS members, as well as the relevant ACESS project staff at this meeting.

Dialogue within civil society about the best from of cash grant to address child poverty
In 2004 ACESS provided a collective forum for concerns and research to be shared as to choosing a policy option around best form of grants to provide poverty alleviation. This issue is becoming critical in the face of the current Department of Social Development’s campaign to address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children – to which it has extended an invite to ACESS to participate in. One of the key focus areas for the Department is the promotion of the FCG. ACESS will be seeking to host a discussion / focus group session with the Department and key ACESS members about the suitability of the FCG for these purposes and whether it is not better to find a different workable solution.

Departmental recognition of ACESS’s persuasive advocacy activities
At a meeting with the Department of Social Development in 2004, the Department recognized ACESS as a driver behind its review and revision activities around children’s social security. It admitted that the pressure we have brought bear has encouraged their engaging in the following areas of research in the run up to its deliberations as to whether to extend the grant to 18 or not. These are: costing of the extension to 18; reviewing poverty line measurements and the means test; research into the use and abuse of grants. With regard to this latter research, in a subsequent meeting with a departmental representative, we were advised that following the publication in the Sunday Times in 2005 of an article written by ACESS about the facts that have emerged form research into so-called cases of abuse of grants – (which in essence shows no substantial abuse by poor people and the evidence shows instead that grants do not breed dependency but a stepping stone out of poverty because of their developmental value) – the Minister of Social Development called on his researchers to review the information highlighted in our article. This review supported our conclusions.