The Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation in conjunction withSouth African Police Service (SAPS) will stage the Sport against Crime Games.

The games will be played in all the six (6) towns of Matjhabeng namely, Virginia, Welkom, Hennenman, Ventersburg, Odendaalsrus and Allanridge. The objectives of these games are to combat crime in our community, eradicate escalating number of gangsters in the community and at the same time keep our community continuously active and healthy through sport.

The tournament will consist of the following codes:

• Soccer
• Volleyball (boys and girls)
• Basketball
• African Basketball
• Netball
• 5km fun run

Other stakeholders involved in this project are the Department of Correctional Services; Matjhabeng Local Municipality; Community Police Forums and the Local Sports Councils. The program will run from 7 September 2013, starting in Welkom and Virginia and thereafter in all the other towns every Saturday until 14 December 2013. Each Saturday will focus on a different town in the Matjhabeng Municipality.

All activities and games will start at 10h00.

Arts and culture activities and workshops will be hosted during the games. All stakeholders will also present workshops to address the youth on issues that they are faced with on a daily basis.

“It is our firm belief that sport plays a pivotal role in all the priorities that our government has set for itself, including crime prevention. Without active involvement in sporting activities individual’s minds become the devil’s workshop and such social ills such as alcohol and drug abuse, rapes, robbery, gangsterism and so on becomes the constant feature of our daily lives.

Sport must be used as a weapon to combat these social ills,” declared the MEC for Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Mr Dan Kgothule. Your media establishment is invited to cover these events.