Speech Notes for the Community Nutrition and Development Centres Meeting In Khayelitsha

Thank you.

• I would like to greet all of you today in the name of Freedom
• I welcome to this Social Development Department event the local leadership of Khayelitsha, including the Khayelitsha Development Forum and other business leaders, Sanco, local councillors and the two service providers that work in partnership with our Department
• The Government of the Western Cape is doing everything it can to improve the way we deliver to you
• The general aim of the Community Nutrition and Development Centres is to provide cooked, nutritious meals to individuals and households that cannot afford to feed themselves due to hunger and poverty
• But what makes the CNDCs different from the soup kitchens is that the CNDCs are designed to link the community to a wide range of development initiatives and other economic opportunities
• There is no point in feeding someone just so that they can sit and do nothing for another day
• Instead we want to empower you to go out there and access economic opportunities
• It is also the Department's aim that CNDCs go some way towards achieving Millennium Development Goal 1 - of halving poverty and hunger by 2015
• I have been conducting site visits to these centres during October's Social Development Month to evaluate the impact of the CNDC Programme
• I am pleased with most of what I have seen so far
• However, I have been informed about friction in the community around some of our centres
• I want to make it absolutely clear these centres are here to serve the needs of all
• I think that everyone here today has seen me before on television taking on corrupt leaders in our country
• Before that you saw me on the streets in the struggle against Apartheid
• I was there with you
• I want to say today that I am only scared of Tixo, and no one else
• If ever I find out that these CNDCs are being abused by local leaders for political gain then I will flush these people out of the system
• Poverty knows no political affiliation
• This means that I will work with anyone that wants to work in an open and honest way
• I don't care what party you belong to
• But if you are corrupt then you are stealing from the poor and stealing from the poor is unforgivable
• The other very important issue I want to talk to you about today is our children
• We cannot accept that mothers are dumping their babies
• We cannot accept that adult men are raping babies and children
• But we must also ask - where are the fathers of these children
• Where are the fathers who should be there to say to that girl: I am going to do my best to look after you and my child
• What is the local leadership of Khayelitsha doing to make fathers live up to their responsibilities
• Together with our partners in the community the Department offers counselling for parents that want help and advice about pregnancy
• I would like to make an appeal to all of you to join hands with the Department of Social Development by helping repair our society
• Finally I would like to ask all of you to stand with me for a minute of silence for all the children that have been killed by those that should protect them, abused by those that should respect and teach them and have been let down by all of us
• Silence