​In an effort to address challenges faced by communities in Boipatong, the Gauteng Department of Social Development in partnership with other government departments and Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) hosted a multi-sectoral service delivery blitz. The service delivery blitz was held next to Boipatong Monument Park, last Thursday, 29 September 2022.
According to the Gauteng Social Development, Sedibeng Regional Office, Community Development Supervisor, Doctor Nkuna, Boipatong is one of the poorest community identified by the sustainable livelihood unit's on war on poverty campaign army when they were conducting house-to-house profiling earlier this year to assess needed services to the people and how the department can intervene to the challenges faced by residents.
Nkuna added that among the challenges they uncovered include high rate of unemployment, substance abuse, undocumented /illegal foreigners, HIV & AIDS, poverty, sewage collection and disposable.
He said the role of the department is to make sure that we deliver quality services to the people and continuously engage with the community members. He indicated that during households profiling people who were more vulnerable received food parcels as short-term intervention and now they are doing service delivery blitz as medium-term interventions.
One young person, Joyce Malaikane who has managed to submit her curriculum vitae and registered herself on the unemployed youth database at the Department of Labour said she is hopeful that something will change since she did not know about the submission of CVs on the department database.
"These services are necessary to people like us who are unemployed, and we don't have means to travel to some of the government offices. We really appreciate the effort of government officials for coming closer to us", Malaikane said.
Amongst the departments providing services included the Department of Home Affairs, Department of Labour , Department of Agriculture, NYDA, SASSA, and Emfuleni Municipality.