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04 October, 2021

Vote of Thanks: Ghanzi Council Chairman Hon.Thato Tshweneyagae

 

The effects of COVID-19

Our District and indeed, our whole country’s mental health has been affected. All of us children, adults, no person has been spared. We were affected mentally, spiritually, psychologically and economically. But there is hope.

 

We have had a lot of challenges:

1. Job losses: most of us have lost our jobs, informal sector collapsed.  There is a general state of fear, anxiety, shock and uncertainty for all.

 

2. Even our all important service providers, our mental health practitioners whom we count on for support, have also been affected by COVID-19, and they too also need psychosocial support. We end up being a burden on their shoulders as society also looking to them to provide psychosocial support.

 

This means that once the adults have these problems, one way or another the stress treacles down to the children, who are the most affected. Then we have teenage pregnancies, defilement, abuse. As part of the effects of COVID-19, this idling after job losses and during long school closures has placed the perpetrator at home while the child is also at home and brought in this phenomenon of adults now looking at children inappropriately.

 

3. I believe there is hope in enhancing Stakeholder collaboration: we need to stop working in SILOS: NGOS, Social Workers, Police; we have got to work together as a team; as one government in spirit of cooperative governance. No government department exists as an island, we operate as one.

 

So what does it all mean?

 

My Recommendations & Way Forward

 

1. The fundamental question: Are our policies and laws really solving community problems in a sustainable manner? Like Destitution Policy, all Economic Empowerment programmes, education policy, Children’s Act. Are we really implementing them? They are crafted very well, but are we using them properly, implementing them in a way that solves community problems? Let us revisit our policies so that our PSS professionals can specialize in what they were trained to do.  Our Social Workers are overwhelmed and do all the work on the ground and end up being Jack of All Trades which compromises service delivery.

 

a. Social Welfare Officers focus on social upliftment. They counsel an individual to build his or her confidence so that he or she can go out into the world out there and conquer it.

 

c. Community Development officers o sidila motho maikutlo gore a kgone go itshetsa.  Community Development starts with one individual and develops the whole community. In my view, Community Development Officers must focus on community development only. I got to understand the crux of community development really from 2014.  His excellency has come up with a recent agenda a re we must change our mindset and how we do things. We need to capacitate them more, we need to pump more money, resources especially human resource into community development, so that they can change the mindset of our community, so that each individual will be inspired to be economically independent, a ikemele ka nosi a ipelege. Ipelegeng e nne a good word, positive minded, meaning independence; not like today when it literally means being dependent. Hire more community development officers.

 

d. You have to make a bold decision Minister. When I was Magistrate we had entertainment allowance. Community Dev. Officers are the heart of government, if we capacitate them to succeed in their jobs our government will succeed. We will reach economic growth. Our dream to reach a knowledge based economy will be possible. But we must capacitate this office.

 

I daresay Hon. Minister, should you do not agree with me I will take it up in 2024 when I reach Parliament, to make sure that CD officers get entertainment allowance, scarce skills,  so that as they counsel us and provide PSS they are happy people Hon. Minister.

 

3. Psychosocial support is often budgeted for under Orphan Care focusing on grief, but in my view this is too simplistic an approach. We are just scratching the surface. We have to go deeper with PSS. The budget is too small: we need more funding for  PSS. The professionals inform me that they need more time in whatever government programs for development that we take out there to the people, they have to go ahead and counsel the people so that there is ownership of these programs. Bold decisions have to be made to budget for this. We need more funding for PSS. We will see growth in economy as empowerment programs ownership will improve. Our professionals need time to counsel the community. I learned that we need someone yo o sidilang maikutlo as we talk to communities about new programs.

 

a. As per the BDP 2019 Manifesto, in my view is the blueprint of Government, we promised our people Economic Transformation, we are going to make bold decisions. Therefore hon. Minister. Make this bold decision Hon. Minister: fund PSS and increase this budget exponentially not by x2 or x3 but x10 or x20, I say this to you also Hon Motsamai.

 

b. Ghanzi has a huge population, significantly in the RADP areas, our cultures are different, our histories are different, so we cannot come in with an economic model of delivery and just feed them information. We need more time, a bottom up approach to counsel them. What I am saying is: give more funds to Ghanzi to enable innovative PSS in the form of boot camps, workshops, seminars, or dialogue in the remote areas so that there is ownership of Economic Empowerment Programs.

 

4. The Social & Community Development (S&CD) is mostly focused on Destitution; we  pay more attention to poverty eradication, but this is the end result; we need to focus more at the beginning, on the individual, to counsel him so he avoids falling into the pit of destitution in the first place.

 

5. School Dropouts is a serious challenge. Our Ipelegeng Guidelines must put in a clause to exclude school children even during holidays, so that Ipelegeng does not attract these kids early as they then lose the long term interest in their education. I say that because when our kids fail their Form Three or drop out of school they head directly to Ipelegeng, sometimes to stand in for a family member. This becomes very attractive to the kids and they see this as their future. We must avoid them falling into the trap of a welfare safety net. If we leave them to get into ipelegeng, the dream of a knowledge based economy would be nothing but a dream deferred.

 

7. Teenage Pregnancy: Hon. Minister in all of the government departments we must build a linkage amongst us. We must collaborate more: Ministries of education and local government (PSS teams) must collaborate together to reintegrate victims of teenage pregnancy, back to a conducive environment to learn. The child should not get back to school and be victimised; making it difficult for young mothers to return to school. When they come in let us counsel them together, our principals and educators can call in the council professionals to provide PSS. Let us build a linkage between education and PSS.

 

8. At Ministerial level we must ensure that in implementation of our policies there is an overlap where one policy ends another must come in i.e Education, Boipelego, Afirmative Action, Ipelegeng; work together under the principle of cooperative governance, always making sure that they carry out what is in the best interest of the child first.

 

9. For mohago, (I emphasize)  Hon. Minister, put more funding into mindset change for ngwana and for Motswana.

 

b. For any economic empowerment program, YDF, CEDA, LIMID, ISPAAD it must be compulsory that before we fund you, you must have gone to the Community Development office for psychosocial support. Let us bring PSS into the fray as a compulsory measure to avoid pouring economic empowerment funds into a hole.