Page 6 - Rural Voice III - Responding to a Pandemic

nkosikhululE XhaWulEngWEni nyEmbEzi ChairpErson
FOREWORD
PAYING TRIBUTE TO ORDINARY LOCAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY HEROES AND HEROINES WHO SERVED VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES DURING THE PANDEMIC
There are many lessons To be drawn from local developmenT agencies response To The dire need of communiTies during The covid-19 pandemic wriTes scaT board of TrusTees chair nkosikhulule Xhawulengweni nyembezi
The crisis enveloping our nation, and the noisy resentment it has sparked, reflect just about every aspect of South Africa’s COVID-19 story. Part of that story is told in this book as a tribute to the ordinary heroes and heroines in local development agencies across the country, who worked tirelessly in support of the poor and the vulnerable.
Beyond the immediate crisis over what should happen to restore normality to our daily lives, the extremities of the pandemic will continue to provide us with useful lessons on the importance of putting national interests first over and above sectoral interests and corporate greed.
Though the first nine months of the pandemic have seen contrasts in leadership between those in political parties, business, labour, and the rest of civil society, none of the three tiers of government has realigned its interventions to anything like the extent the pandemic demands.
Regrettably, many who were hit hard by the pandemic were left destitute because they did not meet the criteria for financial support as, to access support, individuals and businesses had to be ‘part of the system’ and be registered with the Companies Intellectual Properties Commission (CIPC), Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) or South African Revenue Services (SARS).
These bureaucratic hurdles exacerbated many hard realities that predated the pandemic; poverty, income inequality, racial polarisation, corruption, marginalisation, and violation of human rights by individuals and institutions entrusted with protecting human rights and the rule of law. Hit by something as big as the pandemic, any national response programme was probably always going to face serious challenges.
Yet again, the local development agencies, always aware of local realities, successfully collaborated with various stakeholders to provide community responses to the pandemic. The Social Change Assistance Trust has been privileged to collaborate to save lives and strengthen human resilience at a time when solidarity at all levels is key to our survival.
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RURAL VOICE III: RESPONDING TO A PANDEMIC