Barry Streek
The pilot programme of “one-stop centres” for government services in deprived areas – heralded by President Thabo Mbeki in Parliament last month – has begun to take shape.
Eight multi-purpose community centres are being built in the Western Cape and similar centres are being initiated in the other provinces. The aim of the programme, says Edwin Hendriks, chief community liaison officer in the department of health and social services in the Western Cape, is to involve the government and all other stakeholders in co-ordinating development in marginalised areas and to bring services closer to the people.
The one-stop centres will provide a range of services offered by all levels of the government and by NGOs. Hendriks says R20,1-million has been allocated for the construction of the eight centres, R14,5- million of which has been provided by the Western Cape government, R4-million by the Cape Town city council and R1,6-million by the Bavarian government.
The R3,5-million centre at Zwelethemba in Worcester is up and running and some services are being provided at the yet to be completed centres at Plettenberg Bay, George, Nyanga, Langa, Bonteheuwel, Atlantis and Van Rhynsdorp.
Mbeki said last month that a study conducted by his office had confirmed “what surely all of us have known of the correlation between poverty, crime and race.
“The areas of high crime concentration, including all crimes of violence, are the black and poor areas of our country. We will therefore make multi-disciplinary interventions in these areas, starting with a few pilot areas … ”
Hendriks said what was critical in providing centres was empowering the communities in which they were located: “We must take the communities with us.”
Each of the centres has a project management committee in which provincial and local governments have observers, but which are controlled by members of the community, including local councillors.
Although it was initially envisaged that national government departments would also use the centres, this has only happened on a limited scale so far – the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology is involved in the Langa and Plettenberg Bay centres, and the police are involved in the Bonteheuwel centre.
Hendriks says his department is directly involved in the centres where pensions and welfare grants are paid and where social development officers look at developmental issues in the community and provide access to funding.
At Zwelethemba, where some NGOs have offices, the Worcester council has opened a cash office so that people can pay their rent and electricity accounts at the centre. At Atlantis, women have just completed a course in reproductive health and computer training is currently being given.
At Nyanga, NGOs working with the disabled and the youth are already established, a creche has been opened and St Johns Ambulance hopes to extend its meals-on- wheels service for elderly people.
The Government Communication and Information Service has realised how important these centres are for dissemination of information to these communities and the Universal Service Agency is looking at the establishment of telecentres to give these communities access to telephones, the Internet, e-mail and faxing facilities.
What is the next phase?
“That is the big question,” Hendriks says. “That will be done by an evaluation of the eight pilot projects to determine the way forward.”