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 Community Development Services at SANCA
In fulfilling the mission of SANCA, by providing both prevention and treatment services, it aims to reach all the people of South Africa, and thereby enhancing the quality of life and restoring the self-respect and dignity of persons affected by chemical substance abuse.
Communities both rural and urban have been severely affected by the socio-political changes. Individuals, families and communities are grappling with these perplexities. Relationships both personal and formal; family dynamics and the effects of rapid change have taken its toll.
One of the outcomes of these changes are the accumulated affects of social problems. Alcohol and other drug abuse have contributed to these changes. Community development helps to restore the sense of empowerment that communities have lost in this process of change.
SANCA Regional Developers and community workers throughout South Africa respond to calls from communities for intervention. In developing a community development strategy three fundamental principles are considered:
- expressed needs of the community,
- their participation in the development of the programme
- the emergence of self-help programmes.
Action plans might result in:
- committee actions,
- community based treatment programmes
- networking with the other Non Governmental Organisations
- networking with Community Based Organisations.
SANCA through the strategy of community development, empowers the communities to achieve full potential and assume a more enabling role over their lives. Empowering Communities
Community Development
Through this method, we are able to meet people in their communities, use their language and recognise their culture and traditional values whilst combating substance abuse. It rests on the concept of volunteering which crudely defined means the process of feeling very strongly about a situation and wanting to bring about change without expecting anything in return. Volunteering empowers people by giving them a chance to participate in their communities, share skills with other people and extend services to outlying areas. Some volunteers have moved from the process of volunteering to full-time jobs within and outside our organisation. This shows that our empowering process does not keep them dependent on us, but allows them to develop wings to fly.
Projects undertaken
- Youth peer-counselling education Youths in churches, in and out of school are trained in the field of substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and lifeskills. They work amongst other youths through talks, workshops, debates, sports matches, street marches and camps. This method has become very successful since it is youth to youth.
- Community advocates Young adults are given the same training to go out and work amongst the community eg. women and men groups, social and sports clubs, prisons, shopping and other business centres.
- Management Committees From the trained groups, management committees are elected to manage the project after the trainers have left. These volunteers are trained in management roles and functions. This method is found to be very effective in under-served and outlying areas where services are sparse or non existent. Areas in which this method was successfully implemented include: Nongoma (Kwazulu-Natal), Soweto (Gauteng), Messina (Limpopo), Emjindini (Barberton Mpumalanga), Mamaholo (Limpopo) and eMahlabathini (KwaZulu-Natal).
MRS M MTSHALI
Director: Community Development
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