Departments come together to help Jumpers residents
Government officials from the Department of Social Development, SASSA and human settlements have been on-site since the fire occurred.
The government has been working with residents of the Jumpers Informal Settlement in Cleveland, following Saturday’s fire which destroyed an estimated 250 shacks.
On Sunday, a delegation of government officials visited the settlement to assess the damage and determine what assistance could be offered to the residents.
“The major problem in Jumpers is that the shacks are too close to each other. There is no proper demarcation and restructuring is needed. This makes the fire travel faster and spread quickly.
“Human settlement has decided before any rebuilding can be done, the ground needs to be flattened and the trees need to be cut down because they are also a major problem as they help the fire to spread,” said the Johannesburg Emergency Services spokesperson, Mr Robert Mlaudzi.
Government officials from the Department of Social Development, SASSA and human settlements have been on-site since the fire occurred.
“The reason for all these departments being here every day is because we want to ensure the process happens quickly and to ensure that everything which must be addressed is done for the people who lost their homes.
“We want them to go back to their every day lives,” said Mr Mlaudzi.
Social development has deployed five social workers on-site since the incident happened to assist with collecting information about the affected residents. This is to create a database of how many people need assistance.
They are also assessing the needs of the residents and from there, mobilise the relevant structures that work with social development to come and assist in helping the residents.
Counselling is also available for people who may be traumatised from losing everything in the fire.
“A mobile, early childhood development centre, Sukuma Sakhe, is on-site for the safety of the children because parents are busy rebuilding and trying to see how they can help.
“During the day, the children will be looked after by a programme facilitator who teaches the children,” said Mr Mlaudzi.
As the department has been assessing the site and asking questions about the type of lifestyle in the settlement, there are a number of issues that are a cause for concern.
“There are social ills that the department identified and they need to be addressed with the community because some of them are the causing factors of fires,” said Mr Mlaudzi.
On Sunday, the department of human settlement provided affected residents with tents for temporary accommodation.
The department will be assisting residents to rebuild.
“We are not sure when the process of flattening the ground will be done. We are hoping it will be done as soon as possible in order for the rebuilding processes to start,” said Mr Mlaudzi.
