Minister Fritz hosts workshop on violence prevention | Western Cape Government

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Minister Fritz hosts workshop on violence prevention

1 September 2020

Yesterday, the Minister of Community Safety, Albert Fritz, held an internal workshop focusing on its approach to violence prevention for youth. Minister Fritz has noted that violence is a public health issue, as well as a police and correctional services issue. Addressing violence requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society response. 

The programme included a focus on conceptual design, looking at the Western Cape Safety Plan and the public health approach to violence prevention. This was followed by a session on situational analysis on youth in the province and included an overview on the Department’s programmes and content mapping. The program was concluded with a session on building the framework.

Attendees included officials from the Department of Community Safety and the Department of Health.

Minister Fritz said, “The discussions were underpinned and guided by the Western Cape Safety Plan. The WC Safety Plan aims to halve the murder rate in the province over the next ten years through a combination of additional law enforcement and a range of violence prevention programmes. These programmes will particularly target the 11 priority areas where and when crime is most likely to take place.”

Minister Fritz continued, “We enjoyed robust and fruitful discussion yesterday which helped us to map out the impact of violence on youth, and how best we can prevent it. In particular, we discussed the impact of alcohol in propelling violence and related smart interventions that can be taken to address this. Going forward, the lens of public health will be critical in our approach to reducing and preventing the prevalence of violence in our province.”

Attention broadcasters, please see English audio clip here: https://clyp.it/vcxapgtv

Media Enquiries: 

Cayla Ann Tomás Murray
Spokesperson for Minister Albert Fritz
Tel: 021 483 8550
Cell: 064 121 7959
Email: Cayla.murray@westerncape.gov.za