The Premier of Limpopo Province, Mr Sello Moloto, awarded certificates to the 302 Community Development Workers and 77 Youth Development Practitioners at a graduation ceremony held at the University of Venda Auditorium on Thursday last week.

The project is a brainchild the Office of the Premier, the University of Venda, Local Government-SETA (LG-SETA) and Education, Training and Development Practice-SETA (EDTP-SETA). The graduation ceremony of this kind is the biggest and second to take place after the first group of 82 learners Community Development Workers received their certificates in May.

Community Development Workers (CDW’s) are employed by provincial governments and are multi-skilled public servants who are deployed at community level to bridge the gap between the provision of services by government and access to those services by the communities. They received a one-year training at the University of Venda. They are deployed to assist communities with service delivery improvement. They are government foot soldiers who must work with all sectors, organizations, ward committees, councilors and local municipal structures.

The new category of Youth Development Practitioners will assist the government with service delivery in Communication, Government and Governance, Life Skills, Community Development, Project Management, Computer Literacy, Entrepreneurship, Environmental Management and, Agriculture and Food Production.

When addressing parents and graduates during the ceremony, Premier Moloto said it is gratifying that after twelve months of intensive education and training, the province now have the kind of public servants who are community-based and multi-skilled to serve the people in all the various areas of social delivery like health, social development, housing, agriculture, water, energy, economic development and education.

He commended the University of Venda for playing a meaningful role in the development of the community. "We are proud that the University of Venda has delivered on its mandate, as it promised in its mission statement and vision. Like Univen is showing the way, we believe it is incumbent upon all South African universities to teach the kind of values that strengthen community participation and democratic citizenship in their pursuit for academic excellence and relevance in the globalising world. The collaboration with Univen on community development workers programme and in other areas therefore show the extent to which the university has embraced academic transformation and curriculum change in all its disciples," he said.

"The need for a CDW programme came after the realization that many ordinary people in our province and the country, especially the poor and the vulnerable and those in under-served areas, still face difficulties in accessing government services where they live. We realized that despite enormous progress having been made on all fronts, communication is often the missing link between government’s intentions on the one hand and people’s service delivery needs on the other. In some cases, we have noted that government service delivery mechanisms themselves, however relevant, often do not reach the intended recipients effectively and timeously, due to a variety of reasons such as skills shortage, poor human resource capacity, communication challenges, poor systems integration and ineffective inter-governmental relations. This is why we adopted the CDW method of intervention as a key programme of government and an essential tool in bridging the service delivery gap between government and communities. In many municipalities within the province, we hear positive reports that many CDWs are doing their best to assist our people to gain housing, and to assist them with applications for identity documents and social grants."

The premier urged the graduates to use their knowledge in community development: "It is your role to ensure that there is maximum collaboration between yourselves and all the other role players in local government. Our people will be constantly looking up to you to ensure that water taps do not run dry, that cracking houses are fixed, that contractors who build unfinished houses and disappear without paying workers are reported, that the poor, the elderly and the disabled are assisted in obtaining services and social grants, and that disputes between government and communities are resolved amicably without resorting to conflict. Once again, we wish to take this opportunity to thank all our graduates for successfully completing this programme, hoping that you are now ready to discharge your duties and functions in the most effective manner. Our government has invested a lot in your capabilities and skills because we want to see service delivery backlogs reduced in all the affected areas of the province. We have full confidence in your abilities to succeed and failure cannot be an option."