Monument Insure and UNICEF create safe space for Klipspruit Safe Park
As school resume for the New Year, a number of environmental factors need to be addressed to help children learn.
Momentum Insure has partnered with UNICEF to bring to life the Safe Parks initiative aimed at creating safe spaces for young children through the adoption of the Klipspruit Safe Park.
Safe Parks, supported by UNICEF are spaces where children are provided with some essential basic services under the supervision of professionals, recognising that the country’s future lies with its children.
“We cannot afford another generation of lost children who enter young adulthood with no qualifications and no hope,” says Momentum Insure’s Chief Marketing Officer, Shweshwe Tlhapane.
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Facing a range of socio-economic challenges, many South African children don’t even make it through the education system, leaving some of them functionally illiterate and unemployable.
The rising level of youth unemployment in South Africa cannot be addressed by job creation alone. As school resume for the New Year, a number of environmental factors need to be addressed to help children learn.
According to Tlhapane, providing underprivileged children with some care and attention in the Safe Parks is a small step to encouraging them to keep on with their schoolwork, complete their education and build a future for themselves.
“Safe spaces make up for some of the deficits in the children’s home lives and in the education system, by providing the academic and emotional support they need.
“This may be the difference between them staying in school and dropping out,” Tlhapane explains.
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Safe Parks provide children from local communities they serve with the opportunity to be just that to be happy and safe and to play like other children.
“If we can help improve their basic living conditions each afternoon after school, we stand a chance of reducing the school dropout rate which threatens the future not only of each child that drops out, but the future economic growth and stability of the country,” concludes Tlhapane.
Safe Parks’ services and facilities include:
• Department of Home Affairs Child Registration
• Libraries and Chomi internet cafes
• Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes
• Feeding schemes
• Life skills
