Growing number of NGO’s shutting down as government closes taps in salary subsidies

Government subsidies that boost the salaries of social workers in the nongovernmental organisation (NGO) sector are being stopped by the department of social development, resulting in many organisations closing down, according to chief executive of Bethany House Trust Gert Jonker.

“Without the salary subsidies most NGOs cannot survive,” he said.

“The ‘partners in service delivery’ concept, where the department partners with NGOs, has proven to be the only effective way of rendering social work services.

“Curtailing any of those services borders on insanity.” Itumeleng Moloko is a social worker who has been working with victims of domestic and sexual violence for 24 years.

She was a People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa) counselling services manager and worked with 13 social workers, two other counselling services managers and a chief social worker on counselling gender-based violence (GBV) survivors telephonically, face-to-face, via e-mail and through social media platforms.

Powa also offered support groups for survivors and had two shelters in Gauteng, coordinat-ed GBV victims to participate in skills development programmes, provided court support, transported survivors to clinics and hospitals and ran education drives to inform communities about GBV.

Moloko said she could not stand seeing people suffering.

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“I know I am not here to change the world, but the little that I do makes a difference,” she said.

Moloko said that growing upseeing her aunt being abused inspired her to become a social worker and that if it was up to her, the perpetrators would be the ones leaving the homes.

“Having to see abused women go to shelters is not a nice thing to see,” she said.

Moloko said social workers often suffered from trauma and needed proper debriefings.

Many of them were underpaid. Jonker said social work was a scarce skill in South Africa and that the existing social workers had excessive caseloads.

“There is a dire national shortage of social workers,” said Jonker.

He said this meant that the psychosocial and statutory needs of many citizens were not being fulfilled.

“Social workers work under immense pressure with limited resources, specifically those working in the nongovernmental organisation sector. The norm is underpaid professionals who carry immense responsibility,” he said.