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sk - editorial Greetings
to ACESS members and friends of the Alliance. This is ACESS's second
newsletter for 2002 and it provides details on new policy and law
developments relating to ACESS members' areas of interest and ACESS's
advocacy and research projects. Please read and pass the messages
on to as many people as possible in order to ensure that children's
social security Cabinet has just released the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive Social Security System and the Department of Social Development is launching a three year Child Support Grant Campaign. ACESS will be actively engaging in these two processes and we provide more details below on how members can get more involved. In
the midst of all these developments, ACESS has embarked on an organizational
development process aimed at establishing ACESS as a Yours sincerely Shirin
Motala and Paula Proudlock commission of inquiry into a comprehensive social security system for south africa
The long awaited report of the Committee of Inquiry was released
by Cabinet in May and has been welcomed by ACESS as being innovative
in its recommendations to deal with the worsening situation of poverty
and
In particular ACESS fully supports the Commission’s call for
a universal, Basic Income Grant (BIG), which would be provided as
an entitlement without means-testing to all persons in South Africa.
The arguments put forward by
We are of the opinion that such an intervention is the government’s obligation to provide at least minimal assistance to the poorest persons currently not supported; namely children between 7 and 18 and unemployed adults. ACESS
is of the view that the meanstest almost always excludes those
In releasing the report the Department of Social Development has given South Africans until the 15 June 2002 to make their voices heard. What is of particular concern is that while submissions are being invited, there appears to be no effort on the part of the State to make the contents of the report more easily accessible in terms of printed copies being available and also of ensuring that the document is available in a more user friendly form, which also takes into account language needs. The short time for comment has also been criticised as it does not allow for much consultation and discussion.
(A photo taken during the child participation process in Mpumalanga) Initial responses from the Minister of Social Development are of some concern. Although he welcomed the proposal here is what he had to say:
Make
your voice heard on this matter. The ACESS Task Team will be distributing
a summary of the Report and facilitating the ACESS submission drafting
process. We will be calling for your ideas, input and comments for Please contact Paula
Proudlock child grants empowerment and awareness campaign - an acess, soul city and state partnership ACESS has since its inception committed itself to both the development of a new comprehensive and effective social security system while at the same time working towards the improvement of the existing social security system for children. One of our projects focussing on fixing the current system is the Child Grants Empowerment and Awareness Campaign. To this end ACESS has committed itself to a partnership with Soul City and the Department of Social Development towards improving current access to child grants.
(A picture drawn by a child during the child participation process) The Child Grant Awareness And Empowerment Campaign has the following objectives:
The
overall objectives of ACESS’s involvement in the campaign
is to work towards the establishment of an enabling environment
for the registration of beneficiaries to ensure that they are able
to access child grants. ACESS
Soul
City will be using its various media vehicles which include radio
programmes in all 11 languages, Soul Buddyz and Soul City TV series
and print media to disseminate key information about the grants
and how they can ACESS partners will provide advice and legal support to applicants to assist them in applying for the grants and negotiating administrative hurdles. In
May, ACESS and Soul City met with representatives from the National
and Provincial Departments of Social Development to discuss the
partnership and to gauge the state's level of readiness to respond
to the expected increase in At
the meeting, ACESS learnt that the Department was about to launch
a Presidential Campaign to promote the Child Support Grant. The
Department reported that it intends to reach 5 to 6 million children
within the next three years. This is groundbreaking news as the
Department's previous target was 3 million children by April 2003.
Considerable management, staff and budget
(A photo taken in Gauteng during the child participation process) ACESS's Grants Awareness and Empowerment Project will thus take place in this environment where state departments and officials will already be on board with plans to improve the CSG administration and take-up. The success of such a campaign lies in the extent to which ACESS partners, you the members, are able to embrace this project and be part of a process of reaching the children in need. If you are interested and able to make your contribution contact ACESS and tell us how you can be involved. Contact: Shirin
Motala, Children’s Rights Centre barriers to child support grant research project ACESS is of the view that despite significant increases in CSG take up rates in SA over the past year [1] there remains a critical problem in the manner in which the targeting has occurred. From
some very preliminary analysis of take up rates undertaken for ACESS
by the Children’s Institute [2] with the support of Julian
May we
Two points need to be mentioned to understand these stats.
(A photo taken during the provincial child participation process) ACESS
is currently examining other evidence which may explain this worrying
trend of poor take up rates in certain provinces. To understand
We are looking for examples of problems that applicants have had with getting the CSG in general but in particular relating to lack of documents, proof of income, delays in processing applications etc. Ideally we would like CASE Studies of actual people and their experiences - initially this will mean a social worker, development worker or health worker detailing for us the nature of problems they have been dealing with and actual examples. If this case is seen as relevant then we will be in contact to seek consent of and participation of the person affected so that their experiences can be addressed by actions, which ACESS will take on behalf of all affected people using these individuals as examples. Evidence which would be particularly helpful are reports on the extent to which a particular problem affects people. The objective is to find evidence - either anecdotal or actual case studies to support this view and would appreciate any assistance you may be able to offer. If
you have such information but are hampered by time and capacity
to write it up then contact us urgently so that we can assist you
with this. If
you can contribute then please contact Shirin Motala
urgently on:
the acess children's participation process In response to the Committee of Inquiry’s failure to give children a voice in the policy formulation process, ACESS committed itself to facilitating such a process. ACESS’s participation project involved initially a provincial process involving children within a particular setting to share their experiences of living without safety nets and hearing their ideas of how we can make South Africa a child friendly society in which each and every child is free from abject poverty. This was subsequently followed up by a much smaller initiative at the national level where a group of these children had an opportunity to meet with and share their experiences with key decision makers.
(A picture drawn by a child about her sources of strength during the ACESS Child Participation process) If the recommendations put forward by the Committee of Inquiry are taken on board by government, this child may for the first time in his life go to bed with a full stomach. The consultation meant a great deal to the children.
And go to government it did! The provincial consultations culminated in a meeting with national decision-makers, including government officials and parliamentarians, in Cape Town earlier this year. At that meeting, ACESS heard from children that if they don’t pay school fees then they had to sit on the floor or were refused admission to school. Just getting to school is also a problem for most of these children: "I will be happy if I can have some money for transport because I am far away from school. I walk a long distance to school and I pass next to the dangerous place and I walk a long distance to school without having anything to eat."
(A picture taken during the provincial child participation process last year) The child participation process achieved two things that it set out to do; firstly to confirm the value of engaging children as partners in decision making not because it is the acceptable thing to do but more importantly because children’s insights have enlightened us even further on their needs and secondly to ensure that their concerns about the inadequacies and shortcomings of current social security and development initiatives aimed at alleviating poverty are clearly understood from the perspective of children. A report of that process is currently in preparation and will be widely distributed. To receive a copy of the report and for more information contact:
Maddy Semaar at Soul City We have included copies of two newsletters that were sent to the children who participated in the provincial workshops. If you would like to order more copies, please contact Maddy Semaar at Soul City on maddy@soulcity.org.za or 011 643 5852. ACESS will be launching the report on 18 June 2002 in Parliament at a briefing before the NCOP Select Committee on Social Services. We will keep you updated on the exact time and venue. For more information, contact Zama Mvulane on 021 - 685 8303 or zama@rmh.uct.ac.za. submission on the child care act review The South African Law Commission (SALC) invited comment on its Discussion Paper on the review of the Child Care Act. The Children's Institute, ACESS and the Aids Law Project of Wits, compiled a joint submission to the SALC in April. The submission called for the new Child Care Act to include a children's rights charter that would be all encompassing and that would impact on all government departments. We also called for the new Child Care Act to legislate for primary prevention to prevent children from ending up on the streets, being abused, and going hungry. The SALC is having to decide where to locate children's social security needs - in the Child Care Act or in the Social Assistance Act? ACESS called for the new Child Care Act to clearly set out and interpret children's social security rights. The next step in the process is expected sometime in July when the SALC hands over its final Report and a draft bill to the Minister of Social Development. For a copy of the ACESS submission, please contact Paula Proudlock on 021 - 685 1583 or paula@rmh.uct.ac.za. Many networks and alliances evolve (relatively quickly) into a core group of organisations or representatives of organisations who are willing to take the initiative, and make key decisions. While this is a useful way to ensure that things get done, it does not ensure that everyone owns the process. To
address this and other critical challenges in building an effective
Alliance, ACESS Task Team and Reference Team members have been engaged
in an organisational development process. During this process ACESS
has been examining the nature Alliances in South Africa, and has
been interrogating ACESS's plans for the future. A number of issues
came into the discussion It is envisaged that the ideas for ACESS’s ongoing existence will be discussed more extensively later in the year when ACESS hosts provincial workshops and a national membership conference (once donor support has been secured). Make sure you have registered as a member of the Alliance and that you are on our mailing list.
ACESS is in a process of hiring two staff members - A National Co-ordinator and an Advocacy Officer. We will have the pleasure of introducing them to you within the next few weeks. Having two staff members will ensure that all members are kept up to date on new developments and that ongoing opportunities for dialogue and input are created. Please spread the word about ACESS and encourage more organizations to sign up as members. We have included copies of the ACESS pamphlet with member registration forms in your package for wider distribution. If you have opportunities to distribute the ACESS pamphlet and registration form to a wider audience, we will gladly send a package of ACESS pamphlets to you in the post. Please contact: Zama
Mvulane on 021- 685 8303 contact the alliance For further information on ACESS and its activities, please contact one of the Task Team or Reference Team members listed below: Shirin
Motala Shereen
Usdin Paula
Proudlock
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