On the SACC and Mandated War on Poverty & Xenophobia

Bishop Malusi MpumlwanaSACC Acting General Secretary

September 2015.

Rolling Church Action For Social Change

The Rolling Church Action is a deliberate multiyear intervention that has all churches nationally focus on a common agenda for social and economic change. It is designed for:

• The Church to mobilise and sustain a change agenda on critical matters that cry out for attention.

• Burning community concerns and critical issues whose resolution makes a marked difference in the quality of life for most people.

• Ensuring that locals engage in self-driven actions that make a difference in their own lives.

For 2015 and 2016: SACC focuses on the War on Poverty, “Excommunicating” Xenophobia and addressing community instability and displacement through placed-based community mapping, asset assessment and enhancement, and community dialogues for value-adding integration of newcomers.

War on Poverty: A Bottom-up ModelKey Elements of The Model

• The involvement of the community, churches, (those who are closer to the poor) was critical and the only way in which all poor families could be reached to eradicate poverty. Government had good intentions and policies but was unable on its own to reach the people. That relying entirely on Government would not end poverty. Churches ‘form a quorum’ every Sunday without spending any money to convene a meeting or advertise. This is enormous power (latent energy, or potential) which can be employed to defeat poverty.

• The need for a community based volunteer corps (which the Soweto Pilot Programme called ‘Foot Soldiers’) with a commitment to serve the community and defeat poverty - these are drawn from the churches; and with a modest stipend help with gainful engagement by people who might easily have become part of the social problem.

Key Elements of The Model

• A focus on a family (‘family by family’) and working with it (family) until they (the family) is taken out of or pulls out of poverty: Progressively meeting --• Immediate needs (food, clothes, etc.); • Basic needs (schooling, health, water, electricity, housing, identity documents, grants, jobs,

etc.); • Identifying potential change agents (champions) within each family and empowering them in

terms of educational and/or skills development; and, • Assisting them to locate themselves where they can be involved in productive activity

(entrepreneurial activity, business, employment, etc.) and thereby pull the family out of poverty. The model is to work with a family until it pulls out of poverty.

• Partnership with Government draws on services already decided upon in terms of existing policies.

• Partnership with Business enables Business to apply their targeted resources more efficiently with tangible results. It also creates space for business to offer a variety of specialised skills and services such as internet access and communication drives.

Key Elements of The Model

• Ward based operational system (Ward by Ward) with an operational centre (say, a Church) to reach out to the families that are in need or distress within the Ward. At a Ward level ‘Foot Soldiers’ can reach needy families without much costs or working long distances, given that they have to work with the family until it pulls out of poverty.

• A Ward based operational system (Ward by Ward) with a local church as operational centre to reach out to the families that are in need or distress within the Ward. At a Ward level ‘Foot Soldiers’ can reach needy families without much costs or walking long distances, given that they have to work with the family until it pulls out of poverty;

• A Regional Coordination Centre with a full-time Coordinator to manage the Programme, including data (information) and the referral system; facilitate training processes; and coordinate the work with Government, Business and all civil society entities in the Region.

Beyond Poverty Eradication - The Promise of Free South Africa: For the Fulness of Life (John 10:10)

• The Programme goes beyond poverty in the basic understanding, to concerns about roads, dysfunctional schools, ineffectual health and other services.

• Poverty subsists in conditions that deny the fulness of human potential - stunted children, disease-prone and unhealthy lifestyles, crime-riddles and insecure environments a,d environmental degradation.

• Xenophobia feeds on this kind of setting and remains chronically latent awaiting an opportunistic spark out of bad employment practices by shortsighted employers or the practices of corrupt officials.

Beyond Poverty Eradication - The Promise of Free South Africa: For the Fulness of Life (John 10:10)

SACC seeks to offer a comprehensive approach of community dialogues on this, superimposed on the War on Poverty with a package of program tools in various areas: • From early childhood cognitive development giving poor kids a head-start

to deal with complexity and grasp mathematical and scientific principles for advanced intellectual development and marketable skills,

• To nutrition and food security, comprehensive health and well-being, • Financial literacy and income generation. • All grouped in four program clusters of: Poverty Eradication, Democracy

& Good Governance, Health & Wellbeing, and Peace and Reconciliation which anchors the Anti-xenophobia campaign.

Community Action against Poverty, Community Dialogues against Xenophobia

• “Excommunicating” Xenophobia literally means driving the practice and its breeding mindset out of the mainly poor communities.

• SACC uses the platform of composite life improvement combining all efforts in menu of place-based ministrations that address: War on Poverty; Peace, Reconciliation and Healing of Memories; Health and Wellbeing; together with Democracy and Good Governance programming that includes monitoring of elections and the organs of State: Legislature, Judiciary, Executive and Chapter 9 Institutions.

• Thus to “excommunicate” xenophobia is a multidimensional effort that includes research on attitudes, practices, community experiences and community engagement in understanding and interpreting the same. It includes community mapping that can locate new-comers, be they from other countries or other RSA provinces, in the community asset portfolio.

Community Dialogues against XenophobiaSACC KZN began a program of community conversations to address the spread of HIV, teenage pregnancy and other social ills. The SACC has now adopted this approach in the face of xenophobiac attitudes in communities, including the entry provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga, with concerns over the impact of these on farming, the hospitality industry and mining. The aim of community conversations or dialogues is to:

•Generate a deep understanding of the complex nature of social ills within individuals and communities, and to create the social cohesion between communities necessary to create an environment for social and behavioral change.

•Support the development of self-esteem, self-confidence, tolerance, trust, accountability, introspection and self-management amongst schools and communities.

Community Dialogues against Xenophobia

•Examine social contracts among various groups in the community – for instance, the unemployed, new-comers like non-South Africans or other RSA ethnic groups, community leaders and other community-based structures to identify and address the underlying causes of the resilience of social ills.

•Build a pool of resource persons with transformative leadership abilities and facilitation skills in Community Conversations to scale up the community response to fight against social ills like xenophobia

•Bring the voices of people into the national response, and integrate community concerns and decisions into national and local level plans with the aim of linking resources to individual and collective needs.

•Strengthen the capacity of schools and communities to develop appropriate strategies for a response that places communities and individuals at the centre of a comprehensive strategy to build social cohesion.

Outcomes of Community Conversations

The direct community conversations in this model have been known to have appreciable outcomes. But we shall take them beyond the communities in to other forum, resources allowing. We shall look to the expertise that corporates and broadcasters such as media, have to market ideas and promote campaigns.

• At community level, the conversation model yields the following outcomes:

•Community Capacity Enhanced in facilitating community conversations

•Increased number of joint community initiatives for the promotion of a fight against this social ill.

Outcomes of Community Conversations

• Local community structures, local opinion-leaders and ordinary citizens are increasingly involved in decision-making processes affecting their lives.

• Decision-making processes affecting the lives of their institutions and communities increasingly reflect the concerns of communities through a process of active communication.

• The SACC will apply this, together with the War on Poverty Model, to empower communities to overcome the xenophobic tendencies.

•These conversations, if well structured and executed, will add immense value to the social research by research agencies, and will be critical source material for the hoped-for National Indaba.

•The conversations include our conversation this morning, and those we hope to have with other stakeholder across the country.

Outcomes of Community Conversations

Let the Conversations Begin!