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Date : 18/11/2003
Source: Ministry of Correctional Services
Title: Skosana: President's Award for Youth Empowerment ceremony


SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES, MR BEN M SKOSANA, MP, AT THE AWARD CEREMONY OF THE PRESIDENT'S AWARD FOR YOUTH EMPOWERMENT, George, Western Cape, Tuesday, 18 November 2003

Programme Director
Chief Executive Officer of the President's Award, Mr Martin Scholtz
Representatives of NICRO, Mr Lucas Munting and Ms Vanessa Crous
Regional Commissioner of the Western Cape, Mr Bongani Gxilishe
Management and Staff of Correctional Services
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

It is that time of the year again when Christians throughout the world are looking forward to celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ - a season of goodwill dedicated to the perpetuation of peace, brotherhood and love in all corners of the globe. The people of George have the attention of the world at this time.

The world spotlight is currently on the City of George because well-known international golfing stars are arriving here to participate in the President's Cup golf tournament.

You have become the envy of many cities around the world that have not had such a golden opportunity even though they are more widely known than George.

In addition, the President and several members of his government as well as luminaries in various local and international business and other private ventures, will converge on George and spend a few days here. This is a unique event that does not take place very often, but when it does, other even bigger cities in other parts of the country wish it were happening to them.

It is therefore fitting that it is also during this period that we are here today to witness a very significant occasion, when inmates from our correctional facilities are receiving their recognition for the efforts they have put in projecting their capabilities and showing the world that they too are human beings with talents.

We applaud the efforts of the President's Award for Youth Empowerment in unearthing this talent and giving these young people the opportunity to realise their potential.

We are convinced that the President's Award programme, which is a self-development programme available to young offenders equipping them with life skills to make a difference to themselves, their communities and their world, forms part of rehabilitation programmes for young offenders in our department.

It is a holistic programme that aims to promote the social, psychological and physical well being of young people in South Africa.

A President's Award Gold Ceremony was hosted in July last year and during this prestigious event, the former President Dr Nelson Mandela, who is the Patron-in-Chief, accompanied by the Earl of Wessex and his wife and the Commissioner of Correctional Services, Mr Linda Mti, handed Gold Awards to 110 young offenders who successfully participated in the programme.

The involvement of the President's Award in young offender programmes has played a significant role in seeing young people in conflict with the law being successfully reintegrated into society.

This programme was founded by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip of England, but grew to be an international programme running in a number of countries around the world. Next year it will be celebrating ten years of operations in the South African prison system.

It started at St Albans prison in Port Elizabeth in 1994 with 17 offenders. I am informed that one of those participants, Mr Errol de Souza, is here today and he now runs the President's Award's Reintegration and Diversion (READY) Programme from Grahamstown.

He is a living example of what the programme can do for young people who take up the challenge of participating in the READY programme. To date some 14 000 young offenders have been through the programme, and this year alone, over two thousand inmates have enrolled to be part of the Award Programme.

We continue to be indebted to former President Mandela for the excellent support and leadership he is providing to the programme as the Patron-in-Chief.

As indicated earlier, we have always been convinced that the programmes being implemented by the President's Award are congruent to the rehabilitation programmes of the department.

We view rehabilitation as the provision of a safe and appropriate environment conducive to influencing offenders to learn and adopt positive and appropriate social values, which will be catalytic in the creation of a desire in them to lead productive and law-abiding lives when they are released to the community.

With the recent restructuring of the Department of Correctional Services, the previous Education and Training Directorate has been split into three components, which make Skills Development an independent directorate.

Our skills development programmes are meant to develop the market-related labour potential of sentenced prisoners who do not have the necessary level of training to be productively utilised both during incarceration and in the external labour market after release. They are also meant to assist prisoners to lead an honourable, self-supporting and law-abiding life after release from prison.

Training is provided in cooperation with various external role players under the guidelines and standards formulated by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and is furthermore directed by the Skills Development Act.

Training centres and workshops have been completed in Nelspruit, Goedemoed, Upington, Kimberley, Waterval, Kroonstad, East London, Ncome, Johannesburg, Umtata, Bethal and another one right here in George. Construction at Polokwane and Odi Training Centres is expected to be completed during 2004. The combined annual training capacity of these centres is 1600.

Our rehabilitation efforts only go as far as assisting prisoners in acquiring market-related skills and other rehabilitation services while they are in our care. However, the real success of our rehabilitation programmes must be tested against the rate of re-offending by ex-prisoners who participated in them.

It is therefore obvious that the lack of willingness on the part of the community to absorb ex-offenders, simply because they spent time in prison, severely undermines our rehabilitation efforts as a department.

However, recent media reports have painted a glorious picture of our success in rehabilitation in our prisons. The Mayor of Ekurhuleni, Mr Duma Nkosi, recently handed over bursaries worth R160 000 to 39 prisoners at Leeuwkop Prison to enable them to pursue their studies at the University of South Africa (UNISA), Technikon SA and other institutions. This follows the intervention of one of the prisoners, Mzwakhe Mbuli, who had approached potential donors to assist fellow inmates to study in such fields as Information Technology, Bachelor of Technology and others.

In the Department of Correctional Services we accept that we are not in a position to achieve our mission without collaborating and building partnerships with civil society, as we believe that crime is a societal problem and therefore "correction" is a societal responsibility.

The department needs the active support of all stakeholders in its fight to change the lives and behaviour of offenders for their successful re-integration into society as law-abiding citizens. The public needs to be properly educated about the correction process in order to eradicate the widely-held perception that offenders are society's outcasts, and therefore do not deserve a second chance.

Our association with the President's Award is a true testimony to our desire to promote our resolve to involve as many stakeholders as possible in the implementation of our rehabilitation programmes. We therefore urge other organisations that have an interest in the Government's Crime Prevention Strategy and a willingness to break the cycle of crime to ensure that all South Africans live in a safe and secure country, to come forward and hold hands with us as we try to live up to the true meaning of corrections. This responsibility lies on all of us both in the public and private sectors.

Another area in which the President's Award programme is compatible with the policies of our department is in the efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. Much work has been done under the READY programme to empower volunteers in the department through the AIDS Challenge Project.

One of the objectives of this project is to develop a programme of HIV/AIDS awareness relating to prevention, care and support as part of a youth development programme in South African prisons and diversion centres.

We are grateful for the enthusiastic support given by volunteer facilitators for the AIDS Challenge approach by engaging young people in practical activities that emphasise the importance of each individual becoming personally involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

This is a fight in which all of us have to be involved individually and collectively because all of us are affected. It is not the sole responsibility of the government, but everyone has to put the shoulder to the wheel if the spread of this pandemic is to be arrested.

Our current prison population stands at 180 952. This figure comprises 51 297 unsentenced prisoners and 129 655 sentenced prisoners. There are 28 054 young people between the ages of 13 and 20 in our prisons comprising 13 016 awaiting trial, while 15 038 have been sentenced. The Western Cape has a prisoner population of 30 005 making it the province with the third highest number of prisoners after Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Of these, 5006 are young people incarcerated in prisons throughout the province.

It is very sad to note that out of the figures that I have quoted to you and to which the Inspecting Judge, Judge Fagan, referred in his presentation to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services, is that 60% of our prisoners are under the age of 30 years. A greater responsibility is therefore imposed on all of us to ensure that these people who are supposed to be the productive sector of our general population, are equipped with the necessary skills so that upon their release they may easily blend within the country's economic milieu.

However, we are conscious of the fact that offenders face a number of tangible obstacles in their quest to become full and functional members of society after their incarceration, but they also face intangible obstacles particularly the overwhelmingly negative light in which they are regarded by the vast majority of their community including, in some cases, their own families.

As I indicated at the Annual General Meeting of the President's Award in Boksburg in July this year, substantial challenges face South Africa and the African continent as a whole in the area of law enforcement and corrections. The South African government has recognised the importance of youth development for the fundamental transformation of this country and has taken action to address the specific needs of the youth.

We have a beautiful continent and beautiful people of whom the youth from a very important component. We are enjoying tremendous freedom and rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. But these should not be seen as a passport to commit crime and the abdication of responsibility.

Everyone, including the youth as the leaders of tomorrow, must work towards ensuring that as a country we are responsive towards the specific needs of young offenders.

The President's Award is playing a very crucial role in preparing young offenders for their successful reintegration into society.

As I have already said, successful reintegration is not just the responsibility of the Department of Correctional Services alone but it is also an obligation on the part of all of civil society to lend a hand in ensuring that young offenders can be able to pick up their pride in a positive way again.

In conclusion, I would like to express my profound gratitude to the President's Award programme for your continued support for our efforts to build an inmate who will be of tremendous benefit to the community upon their release, thus contribute to the socio-economic development of this country.

Our obligation is to assist the ex-offenders to pull themselves by their own bootstraps and endeavour to make a better life for themselves, their families and the community. My wish is that what we are witnessing to day can be emulated by other organisations of noble intentions.

Let us all work together to give offenders an enabling atmosphere so that they may take responsibility for their lives and reconcile with their families, victims and the community by equipping them with the tools of self-empowerment and the belief in their own self-worth.

I take this opportunity to wish all of you and your families and friends a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

God bless you all I thank you

Issued by: Ministry of Correctional Services, 18 November 2003
Source: Department of Correctional Services (http://www.dcs.gov.za)

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