TSWELOPELE RESIDENTS VOICE CONCERNS AHEAD OF SERVICE DELIVERY BLITZ

By Phetoho Maja

• The Gauteng Department of Social Development plans a service delivery blitz next week in Tswelopele, Tembisa, to address pressing community issues following a recent dialogue highlighting concerns around substance abuse, crime, unemployment, and gender-based violence.
• The community dialogue, prompted by household profiling, revealed critical service delivery challenges, including a lack of water, sewage, electricity, proper road infrastructure, and housing that require municipal intervention.
• Stakeholders, including local non-profit organisations, are set to participate in the upcoming blitz on 3 October 2024, with a focus on fostering community engagement and providing skills development opportunities.

The Gauteng Department of Social Development has vowed to bring stakeholders to the community of Tswelopele in Tembisa, Eastern Corridor, by hosting a service delivery blitz next week. This comes after a community dialogue held on Wednesday, during which it was identified that service delivery issues—particularly substance abuse, crime, unemployment, and gender-based violence—are major concerns. The community also raised various service delivery challenges needing municipal intervention, such as a lack of water, sewage, electricity, proper road infrastructure, and housing.

Speaking to the community, Jonathan Langa, a Community Development Practitioner from the Sustainable Livelihood Directorate in the Ekurhuleni Regional Office, stated that the dialogue was initiated following a robust household profiling effort. “A month ago, we conducted door-to-door visits alongside our Sawubona Mhlali Service Delivery Brigades to uncover societal issues such as substance abuse and crime. We are here to encourage you to engage with us and with one another to identify interventions,” he said.

“This is a build-up activity for the upcoming service delivery blitz, which will take place on Thursday, 3 October 2024, where we will bring together a large number of stakeholders to address your concerns,” added Langa. The dialogue was attended by department officials from various units, including substance abuse, GBV, sustainable livelihoods, and representatives from locally funded non-profit organisations such as ‘Life 4 You Foundation’ and ‘Get Informed’, who aim to offer skills development opportunities to the community.

Confidence Chauke, a 19-year-old community member, highlighted that teenage pregnancy is also a significant concern in the area. She said, “Poverty and unemployment are major drivers of teenage pregnancies in our area. We see our sisters under the age of 19 going out with older men to get money to support their families.”

“The outcome of such relationships (sugar daddies) will always be pregnancy. We need to combat peer pressure at school and address the issue of poverty to overcome this problem,” Chauke concluded.