Welfare might be in trouble

Although the organisation receives a monthly subsidy from the Department of Social Development to pay the professional staff it does not cover all of the salaries and it does not cover the day-to-day expenses.

This Non-Profit Organisation is dependent on financial assistance from resources, either individually or corporate in the community.

The community of Springs and KwaThema is dependent on the society and professional staff to protect and cater for the needs of the children.

“If the society is no longer able to deliver these services to the children they will suffer and be at risk of abuse.”

Programme manager Sanet van Moerkerken says the income received from the department is less than 50% of the society’s total expenditure.

Therefore fundraising and the generosity of donors and donations from the public plays an invaluable role in sustaining the organisation in order to continue rendering the service.

Since 2008 money from The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) has aided the society in covering the day-to-day expenses.

“A new application to NLDTF was done in December 2012, but to date no feedback has been received whether the application was successful or not,” says Sanet.

According to the society’s financial manager Chantelee Bothma, in the application it has to be specified what the organisation wants to use the requested money for.

She says the 2012 application was to meet various needs of which the Asibavikele Project is one.

“This is a community-based project meaning ‘Lets protect them’, the children,” she adds.

The project is where volunteers from the community were identified and trained in 2008 to assist the society in looking after the welfare of children in Slovo Park, Gugulethu/Everest and Payneville.

If they are unable to deal with certain cases they report to the offices in Twelfth Street, Springs CBD, and the social workers continue with rendering services, especially in cases of all forms of abuse.

Sanet says the NDLTF does not always agree to the amount requested per project and the society must then use the amount given and decide which objectives to meet.

Reports are given to NLDTF on a six-monthly basis explaining how the allocated money was spent over the period it was provided for as a way of monitoring.

It is thus clear that without funding from NLDTF the society cannot continue with most of the projects and will be compelled to generate additional income to meet the monthly shortfall.

Chantelee says the biggest day-to-day expenses are telephones, maintenance of the office vehicles through services and petrol.

Much of the work of the social workers and social auxiliary workers entails doing home visits to assess the family’s home circumstances and the children’s care as well as phone calls to request their presence at the society’s offices.

“With petrol prices escalating this will be an ongoing problem,” she adds.

Sanet says although they receive donations from the public from time to time, it is mainly in kind and not in terms of funding to sustain the organisation.

“People are very sceptic when it comes to donating money, they always want to know what it is being used for,” she adds.

The social workers have caseloads far above the norm set by the department of 60 per month, thus making service delivery an even bigger challenge.

Sanet constantly motivates staff to save internally as much as possible.

Anyone who wants to make a financial or any other contribution can contact Springs Child Welfare on 011 812 2345/6 or send an email to cwsasprings@gmail.com to obtain the banking details for EFT payments.

The society is also registered to provide Section 18 certificates for tax purposes.