The Grahamstown office of Child Welfare South Africa is reducing the number of its volunteers to ten so that it can better manage its performance.
The Grahamstown office of Child Welfare South Africa is reducing the number of its volunteers to ten so that it can better manage its performance.
The announcement was made by Grahamstown Child Welfare managing director Woineshet Bischoff at a meeting with the Asibavikele volunteers at which the project supervisor Kim Wright was also present.
Bischoff gave the volunteers until the end of the year by which time she will announce the names of the selected ten.
Asibavikele ("Lets protect them") is a national project which focuses mainly on providing support to orphans and vulnerable children and their families. The project also facilitates applications for foster care and child support grants and was started in Grahamstown in 2008 when 25 volunteers were hired and trained. The 25 volunteers each get a monthly stipend of R350.
News about the downsizing surfaced recently when Wright told a fortnightly meeting of Asibavikele volunteers that, due to financial constraints, they would be reduced and that the stipend for the remaining volunteers would be increased.
Wright also asked the volunteers to wait for an invitation to last week's meeting where Bischoff made the official announcement. While Bischoff spoke, many of the volunteers were visibly tense, and only a few asked questions while others mumbled, "we are getting fired."
They refused to be photographed by Grocott's Mail. When some volunteers asked about the fact that in other towns the project hires 25 volunteers, Bischoff defended her office's decision. “We, as Grahamstown, don't need any national or provincial permission to make changes in our site," she explained.
“The [excluded]volunteers may use the training which they received from our NGO but as long as they're not using Asibavikele's name." Bischoff added that it took a lot of effort for her office to "make it happen with the 25 volunteers" which is why they decided to reduce the number.
"Now we are moving on, this is another year we want this programme to continue with the new way of controlling the few volunteers," she said. When asked if the ten volunteers will cope with the extra workload, she said: "It's not about quantity but the quality, the 25 that we have will continue until December under the very close eye of an eagle and next year we will begin with ten volunteers."
"The implementing organisation [Grahamstown and other Child Welfare sites] has the right to make decisions regarding the implementation of the project in their specific site," Bischoff later explained to Grocott's Mail.
"It takes a lot of effort to manage 25 volunteers, all the families they render services to, and all the administrative requirements of the project."
She added that they receive minimal funding for the project, and that very often the work submitted by some of the volunteers is "unsatisfactory".
Volunteers Nandipha Magadla, Bulelwa Majiza, Nosigqibo Tsewu and others said the move was unfair as they are breadwinners in their families who do not have other sources of income.
"The office took a decision which we can't even try to stand up to and come up with our views as fieldworkers,” said Magadla.
