Residents of Ward 11 and neighbouring areas met in the Recreational Hall in Albany Road on Wednesday for a needs analysis exercise conducted by the Social Development district office.
Residents of Ward 11 and neighbouring areas met in the Recreational Hall in Albany Road on Wednesday for a needs analysis exercise conducted by the Social Development district office.
The exercise was intended for the residents to identify any self help projects within the community that require social and/ or economic upliftment as well as creating awareness around the department-funded community projects.
A need for job creation was the first to surface when Lindela Jongilanga from the Community Development section of the Department of Social Development asked the residents to write down down what the community needs most.
Another factor is a lack of recreational or sporting facilities to keep the youth entertained and therefore prevent from participating in self destructive behaviour such as substance abuse.
“Our people go and drink, there are no sporting facilities available,” one resident said. Tensions arose when the residents complained about the lack of involvement from the municipal side.
“We want the council to get somebody to clean up on a permanent basis and not come now and come back three months later,” said one resident.
Another resident complained about the lack of proper roads in Hoogenoeg which makes it a high crime area.
Another resident stood up and expressed her basic need for a house. “We have been fighting, we have been having meetings.
If you are here for a meeting for education or whether it is for social development, our minds are on this. We come to meetings, they make promises and nothing happens.
You are putting down the needs, I understand that, but my main need is a house. On TV we hear that houses are built in Port Alfred, Uitenhage nothing is happening here.”
She added, “Do me a favour and go to the people and tell them to give us our basic need – houses.” Everyone applauded this statement.
Jongilanga replied that it’s not possible for him to sort out housing problems. He explained that the exercise would help create a document called Participatory Rural Appraisal which incorporates the knowledge and opinions of rural people in the planning and management of development projects and programmes.
The document can then be taken to all the other departments according to the needs identified in the document.
Present at the meeting was the Masikhuthale Women’s Operative, composed of five women who use their skills in a productive sewing and bakery business.
Nomitswana Patala,said “I think to get out of poverty we need to realise our dreams. The people in this area are very skilful, good plumbers, good bricklayers and house builders, and so many other things.
You can create employment with the skills you have.” Jongilanga said that their department has invested in seven Makana wards such as Alicedale’s Ward 3.
They are looking to gradually extend their work to other wards in the Makana area. “When people think social development, they think grants, that is not all that we are about,” he said.
