Health and Education

Mobilise and organise for better health care and schooling

The ANC is launching a national campaign to mobilise South Africans towards the achievement of better health for all and access to quality education. This campaign is being launched on Friday, 15 August 2008 at Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown.

This campaign arises from the decision of the ANC's Polokwane Conference that health and education should be at the centre of the ANC's social transformation programme for the next five years.

The campaign will be launched on the very site where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955, a document that defines health and education as important elements of a free and democratic society.

Among other things, the Freedom Charter says: "Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit."

It also says: "Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children." This requirement has been partly implemented. This will be extended by implementing the Polokwane resolution on introducing a national health insurance.

To further advance these objectives and to build on the successes and achievements of the past 15 years, the ANC is embarking on a mass mobilisation campaign to improve access for all to quality health care and to encourage healthy lifestyles. On the education front, the campaign calls on individuals and organisations to assume responsibility for improving the quality of education.

The health element of the campaign aims to:

• mobilise communities and sectors of society to promote responsible sexual behaviour, and encourage regular voluntary HIV testing and counselling;
• intensify efforts to create an environment that promotes positive individual behaviour in communities, especially among young people;
• mobilise ANC branches to play a visible role in providing care and support to individuals and families in distress, and in working to eliminate stigma attached to HIV and AIDS;
• promote awareness in communities about services available for prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission, antiretroviral treatment and all means to improve nutrition;
• keep our people informed about their rights and responsibilities regarding their health, including the services available to them;
• ensure people participate in the governance structures of health institutions;
• mobilise communities around the Healthy Lifestyles Campaign, including the anti-tobacco campaign and the campaign against alcohol and substance abuse;
• intensify measures to improve equitable access to health care provision and financing;
• involve communities in service delivery improvement to ensure adequate supply of appropriate medicines and other supplies, adequate safety for health institutions and health workers, as well as the monitoring of the general cleanliness of facilities and the quality of care.

Quality education for all

The education elements of the campaign will:

• conscientise citizens about the importance of education, and their roles, responsibilities and obligations towards education;
• mobilise communities to provide support to schools, teachers and learners;
• improve the quality of education for all children, adults and youth, especially the poor, and to have this improved quality reflected in better learner achievements.

The achievement of quality education for all depends on the actions of department officials, school principals, teachers, students, parents and community members. These individuals will be called upon to each make a commitment to a 'Code for Quality Education', which describes the responsibilities and discipline required of them.

According to this code, education department officials at a local level have a responsibility among other things to always be available to assist schools, principals and teachers; visit all schools within the district on a regular basis, to provide support and guidance; monitor teacher and student attendance, and ensure no child is out of school; and ensure all schools receive the necessary sources in time for teaching to commence.

Teachers have a responsibility to teach, as the formal teaching process is critical to education and to the development of learners as individuals. They also need to develop loyalty and respect for the profession, which involves punctuality, enthusiasm, preparedness for lessons, and being of sober mind and body. They need to develop and maintain mutual respect and good communication between teachers and students, and between teachers and parents. They must eliminate unprofessional behaviour such as unsavoury and unacceptable teacher-pupil relationships, drunkenness, drug use, assault, and others.

For their part, learners have a responsibility to accept that their primary reason for being in school is to learn and for the development of their potential as all-rounded individuals, academically, socially and culturally. They should adhere to school rules agreed upon in legitimate, democratic forums and institutions. They should respect the authority of teachers, and use Learner Representatives Councils (LRCs) to ensure that teachers do not abuse their authority. Learners need to avoid anti-social behaviour like theft, vandalism, and assault, alcohol and drug use, and other activities that disrupt the learning process.

Parents have a responsibility to involve themselves actively in governance structures that affect the education of their children; create a home environment conducive to study; and assist in the protection of educational resources such as textbooks, chairs, tables and others.

Community members also have responsibilities, to ensure that every school-going child is at school. They should work to ensure a safe and crime-free environment for schooling, and to protect the school and its assets from vandalism.

If all sections of society work together - government, communities, health care workers, civil society, business, media and other sectors - we can improve the health of all our people, and ensure that all learners benefit from quality education.

The ANC calls on all South Africans to join us in this campaign, as part of the ongoing effort to achieve a better life for all.

Street Committees

Deepening the fight against crime

In his closing address to the ANC's 52nd National Conference, held in Polokwane in December 2007, President Jacob Zuma said, "I therefore call on all ANC branches to actively lead, champion and facilitate crime prevention strategies." In this regard, among the many experiences we need to draw lessons from, the President mentioned street committees.

The ANC January 8th Statement this year calls for the sharpening of our anti-crime campaign, and the need to work to improve structures and functioning of the various elements of the criminal justice system, as well as to highlight the critical role of mass mobilisation in the fight against crime.

The Freedom Charter directs us to strive to ensure that the people of our land live in conditions characterised by security and comfort.

Our objective is to ensure that all South Africans, especially the poor, experience an improving quality of life. This includes the pursuance of the goal of ensuring that our communities live in conditions of peace, security and stability. While we strive also to give birth to a nation inspired by the values of human solidarity, crime violates people's human rights and works against our objectives of promoting values of a caring society.

The Strategy and Tactics of the ANC directs us to place critical focus "on mobilising society to make life difficult for criminals in our midst".

We engage in the battle against crime conscious that it cannot be divorced from the war on want. Therefore, it is the overall programme of national democratic transformation that will gradually eliminate some of the conditions that spawn the scourge of social crime.

Working in partnership with the criminal justice system, communities need to be mobilised, encouraged, empowered and assisted to assume an active role to meet the challenges of crime.

Addressing the ANC Transvaal Congress on 21 September 1953, Nelson Mandela said, "Our immediate task is to consolidate these victories, to preserve our organisations and to muster our forces for the resumption of the offensive. To achieve this important task the National Executive of the ANC in consultation with the National Action Committee of the ANC and the SAIC [South African Indian Congress] formulated a plan of action popularly known as the M Plan and the highest importance is given to it by the National Executives. Instructions were given to all provinces to implement the M Plan without delay."

Mandela continued: "From now on the activity of Congressites must not be confined to speeches and resolutions. Their activities must find expression in wide scale work among the masses, work which will enable them to make the greatest possible contact with the working people."

Describing the M Plan in his introduction to the book 'No Easy Walk to Freedom', former ANC President Oliver Tambo said, "Mandela drafted the M Plan, a simple commonsense plan for organisation on a street basis, so that Congress volunteers would be in daily touch with the people, alert to their needs and able to mobilise them."

Writing in Umsebenzi Online, Volume 7 No 9, SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande observed: "The call by the ANC President Jacob Zuma for the formation of street committees as part of a crime-fighting strategy is an important call and initiative." He noted then that while this is an urgent task, there was however "little visible activity". The latter situation though is certainly changing. There is now visible activity.

Nzimande also challenged us to debate on "the character, tasks and challenges in building street, village and block committees". We agree with him that such structures may assume different forms in different localities and that we should therefore not be too prescriptive with regard to the form. We also agree with him that practical work on the ground will assist us better to learn about the shape and role of these structures in a democratic setting.

Last Sunday President Jacob Zuma launched street committees in Durban. The committees were launched in Ward 11, in areas that include Newlands East, Siyanda, and part of KwaMashu Section D; at Garuppa Street Brimdle Place and; Skate and Moray Place. More are set to be launched in Free State, North West and Limpopo.

During the launch, Zuma called on the South African Police Service (SAPS) to cooperate, assist and join hands with street committees to strengthen the fight against crime.

In the 1980s, during the days of the United Democratic Front (UDF), street committees were successful in defeating various criminal gangs that were terrorising the communities. Around Durban, these gangs included the amaSinyora in KwaMashu, amaNinja in Clermont, amaMavarara in KwaNdengezi.

We defeated these, and indeed many other criminal elements in other parts of the country because we were organised.

The terrain has indeed changed. There is bound to arise some tension between the street committees and the various community structures, including Community Policing Forums (CPFs). We must conceptualise ways of managing this tension. Significantly, the role of street committees must be seen in a positive light. They should supplement the work of the other civil society and governance organs and institutions, including the SAPS.

During the launch of the street committees in Durban, Zuma issued a challenge to the leadership of our movement at all levels, to draw experience from the volunteer movement of the 1950s. Part of the challenge is to consider how we could better utilise the volunteer spirit of marshals. We could for instance create a database of all the marshals, develop a structure and create a code to guide the important work they do.

It has also been noted that a number of street committees in the 1980s were hijacked into vigilantism. One of the critical ways to address this challenge would be through political education. Unlike during the 1980s, today we have the political space to deepen political education. Where this may not be feasible through a party-political approach, creative ways must nevertheless be found to drive the message home, such as we did in the 1980s through faith based organisations and other NGOs.

Irrespective of how it is done, the comrades involved in these formations would indeed need to undergo ideological training so that they may develop a deeper understanding of the challenges.

We have no choice but to succeed in ensuring that the revolutionary movement wages the revolutionary war in conditions that are not fertile for counter revolutionaries to exploit backward elements in society.

The 'cries' about the imminent inclusion of the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) into the SAPS ignore the immense challenges we face to ensure the peace and security of all the people, particularly the poor, and thus the need to strengthen our overall capacity to fight crime, not only white collar crime.

Nzimande notes that, "because of the proximity of street committees to the people, they are well placed to begin to identify and act upon a whole range of other challenges facing households in a street, including levels of poverty."

This is precisely what Tambo meant when he said, "Mandela drafted the M plan, a simple commonsense plan for organisation on a street basis, so that Congress volunteers would be in daily touch with the people, alert to their needs and able to mobilise them."

Let the experience in KwaZulu Natal, Free State, North West, Limpopo, and the other provinces that will certainly follow suit in constituting street committees, inform the debate as we work to evolve organs of people's power.

We commend the leadership of the ANC in KwaZulu Natal led by Zweli Mkhize, as well as the leadership of the eThekwini Region led by John Mchunu, on the progress they have made in the establishment of the street committees.

As President Mandela said in 1953, let our activity not be confined to speeches and resolutions. Our activities must find expression in wide scale work among the masses, work that will enable us to make the greatest possible contact with the people.

** Nathi Mthethwa is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee.

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