Programme Director
Bishops of the Methodist Church present here
Reverends
Omama bomanyano
Worshippers
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen.

Allow me to greet you all in the holy name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!

I am born and a baptized Christian and a grand daughter of a Reverent of the Methodist Church in the Eastern Cape, e Rhode.

First and foremost let me take this opportunity to thank the Methodist Church particularly this circuit for the invitation to join your service this morning as part of celebrating the Elderly People's month, through the health awareness theme.

The elderly as we all know are the custodians of our diverse wisdom, cultures and values and are as such to be treasured. When we took over as government in 1994 this is one of the key priorities that we identified as part of our plans to deliver services and improve the quality of lives of our people, as a critical component of the governments strategic objective of social cohesion. I feel truly happy to be here this morning as part of my work to advocate for the improvement of the lives of the elderly in our society.

Most of older persons in our country grew up and lived in adverse circumstances where a greater part of their lives was affected by the injustices of the past. As a country and government we are striving to ensure that the constitutional rights of older persons are met and that special attention is given to you. Over and above constitutional obligations this also forms a bedrock of our value system and cultural systems for us to treat those who are older than us with utmost respect and dignity.

Fortunately our Government has now put in place programmes to truly improve the quality of life of older people through providing the necessary protection, care and support. We as government have committed ourselves to promote and protect the rights and the need of older persons.

In 2002, the United Nations issued a "Declaration of the Rights of Older Persons" and we remain committed to support and implement the principles of this Declaration and they are:
• Participation and ensuring that older persons remain integrated in society, that they participate actively in the formula and implementation of policies that directly affect their well - being and share their knowledge and skills with younger generations.
• Dignity: that older persons live in dignity and are free of exploitation, physical and mental abuse.
• Independence: that older persons have access to food, water, shelter, clothing and healthcare through provision of income, family and community support and self help.
• Self-fulfilment: that older persons are able to access opportunities for their potential and full development.
• Care: that older persons benefit from family and community care and protection in accordance with each society's system and cultural values.

Government in keeping with these principles has amongst others introduced the following:
• ABET enabling older persons to be able to read and write, and in thus context read for yourselves also to be able to read the bible.
• Equalization, regularizations and standardization of pensions.
• Free in and outpatient hospital services including cataract surgery.
• Provision to all free assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, walking aids, hearing aids and spectacles. We would be the first to admit that much more still needs to be done to wipe out the backlog that we inherited. Our commitment is there for everyone who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

As we all know, the church played a very critical role in the fight against apartheid in the past based on its own conviction and ability to distinguish between wrong and right.

Some of us know very well that church buildings and premises would, from time to time, be used as hiding places for those who were running away from the evil arm of the oppressor which was always pursuing them with a view to silencing them.

As I have just said, this role that the church played was informed by the ability of the church and religion in general to distinguish good from evil, contributing all the time to liberate our people and striving to improve their quality of life.

The message that I am conveying therefore on behalf of the Government, Presidency and the people of South Africa in general is for the church to continue playing a meaningful and constructive role in society. This role is even more critical and urgent in a society such as ours still confronted by a number of social ills and inequalities.

As we would all know, these entail among others the use of drugs and reckless intake of alcohol, the domestic and sexual abuse for reasons that we find sometimes extremely difficult to understand including the over-indulgence on a number of things that we are exposed to in our society.

It is precisely this over-indulgence that even the scriptures caution us about. I have no doubt you will agree with me that most pressing challenges facing us as a country is the burden of disease. It is these diseases that lead to deaths in our families and communities and in fact brings stress to bear on the church itself.

Senior members of the church and even ordinary members would be expected or required to visit homes and pray for the sick. In extreme of cases as in when death occurs members of the church get emotionally drained as a result of this loss. It is for this reason that I say this morning; the role of the church in addressing these challenges cannot be over-emphasised.
In my new task as Minister in the Presidency, one of my key responsibilities is youth and development in our country.

To state the obvious here, the youth constitute a great part of the population in our country. They are our resource both in the present but for the future as well, and the country's economy depends on them. It therefore becomes important that we involve them in the decision-making structures and processes of our country, including in the church. We also have to work very closely with our youth around issues of volunteerism and the implementation of the National Youth Service.

What we witness on a daily basis is the destruction of this resource by, amongst others diseases, road accidents, guns and knives. This cannot be correct. Something has got to be done and we call on the church, the families, youth itself and communities, the private sectors to become an active partner as we do this work as government. Again over and above praying for all these social ills, we call upon the church to partner with government in driving the moral and spiritual renewal for our young people.

We call on the church to work with us in initiating and driving social and community reconstruction programmes to address the many challenges facing us.

Equally important the young people themselves should also identify and see a need to work with the church in confronting the many social ills facing us for the sake of our country's future.

I am therefore quite excited by the improvement that young people from this church; the community and government (particularly the Department of Health) have done in the painting of the church, giving it a new face, giving of their time and resources. Small as it might appear to be, this is by no means insignificant.

The other issue that I wish to address myself to this morning is the critical one of social cohesion. This matter talks about how well we perform in terms of building the kind of nationhood that we all aspire to. The danger exists that if we fail in this crucial project of social cohesion and nationhood, we can't talk of any nation.

Social cohesion refers amongst others to our ability to co-exist, side by side with those who may be different from us, the poor, the disabled and even those who may come from other parts of our country and the world to live with us. As good neighbours - be our brothers and sister's keeper. Umntwana Womuntu ngowami.

As government we were severely depressed by the recent acts of attacks on foreign nationals for reasons that can never be understandable. Some of our nationals also became victims of the attacks.

Lives were lost and routines were disturbed during these unfortunate incidences of violence. But as happened before, the church and government were able to rise to the occasion, by not only condemning these acts but also providing humanitarian assistance in the form of food and accommodation. Civil Society and the private Sector indeed were acted together as South Africa to solve a challenge facing us as a country.

Who can forget the unfortunate scenes of refugees accommodated in the central Methodist church in down Johannesburg? We want to thank and appeal to the church in general to continue rising to the occasions when our society, and democracy is threatened and faced with such unfortunate incidents. The church is not immune from what is happening in its environment, and it can never be.

As I said at the beginning, diseases continue to be among the biggest challenges facing us as a country. They place an enormous amount of pressure on our country's resources including healthcare facilities. The reality however is that most of these diseases are preventable.

One can immediately think of diseases such as diabetes, accidents and traumas certain cancers, and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and AIDS, and the devastating complications of the consumptions of tobacco and abuse of alcohol.

What is required of us as members of the church, as members of the society is to change the way in which we live our lives and adopt healthy lifestyles. This includes amongst other things like choosing carefully the food we eat, engaging in regular physical being active and exercise, practicing protected sex, not using tobacco products and the responsible use of alcohol.

Already, government is running a very progressive and important campaign of Healthy Lifestyles as part of mobilising communities around the importance of this programme.

To promote good health and prevent disease. As part of this programme we always encourage communities to establish their food gardens as part of ensuring access to nutritious food avoiding the consumption of fast junk food, but thus is also a strategy to contribute towards food security given the ever-escalating food prices. Remember an apple a day keep the doctor away, raw carrots are good for your every sight, garlic is good and clean the virus, especially thrush in your mouth. It is equally good to treat Shengella when mixed with asprim, and beetroot and lettus improve your blood content. There is a Menu on the Cabbage Restraurant, and clubs - the menue is " Minister salad with lettuce, madumbe, garlic, olive oil, beef" this cost R70. you can produce this for less than R 70 and amongst other things it improve your appetite and if you are HIV positive, it prolong the progressive from HIV and AIDs. We need to invest in this area of work, as is being with Dr Rahoda in Zambia and some of activist. We are indeed looking, researching and developing other mechanisms, including the African Traditional Medicine.

The appeal that I want to make to the church this morning is to work with us as government in deepening this important campaign. I have no doubt in my mind that the clergy will be able to incorporate this important message in their daily and weekly message to the congregation. Teachers and Sportspeople do the same, we all have a responsibility.

Some of you might think perhaps think that you are too old and maybe too young given the peer pressures on all of us to change our lifestyle. As the saying goes, it is never too late to learn new things and habits in life, especially those that are positive. I would like to encourage you especially the Senior citizens to adopt these healthy lifestyles habits as part of improving your own health and quality of life.

Remember active ageing means healthy and fulfilling ageing.

Equally important however, there is a need for the church to talk to its members about the scourge of violence directed, particularly at women and children. Amongst other things, this sort of violence contributes towards the spread of sexually transmitted diseases simply because it is based on power relations, both economic and physical. - It is gender based in the main.
In the new role that I have been given I am going to work hard in mobilising the country's gender machinery such as the Office of the Status of Women in the Presidency as well as the Commission on Gender Equality to work closely with the church in addressing this challenge.

Part of the reason why I seem to be placing particular emphasis on this issue has to do with the amount of pressure that preventable disease, both communicable and non-communicable place on the country's fiscus.

As government therefore as far as it is practically possible, we must work with each other in supporting government programmes and thus avoid a situation where one Department is expected to perform miracles. In silos changing of behaviour including health behaviour in our society is the responsibility of all of us including the church.

The reminder of the this working together was the launch of partnership against AIDS on the 9th October 1998 - by the former President Mbeki, We this year, celebrate the 10th Anniversary of that land, which did not only saw the seeds of caring for evils but also produce for this country the most progressive strategic and Comprehensive plans for the Management, care, support and treatment of HIV and AIDS, including TB and other sexually transmitted disease. We must consolidate this Partnership, which is to leverage just domestic but has develop into intersectoral partnerships,
• to understand and elevate the importance of prevention: Abstenance, being faithfull and using a condom. Proper hygiene.
• The value of proper nutrition
• The need to fully understand the nature of the virus, its behaviour and the immune system of the body. These will give ammunition to develop appropriate intervention including the research of in particular the vaccine. Addressing the issues of poverty education and gender relations are also critical for our response to the spread of HIV and its impact on society as we engage in a robust research in the basic sincere, including the behavioural change. As an international community, all of us , upper most in all this, we must also be able to observe ethical guidelines that in all these trials.

On a much more personal note, most of us in this room will remember the serious health challenges that I experienced in the recent past. Let me therefore take this opportunity to thank the church for the prayers, encouragement and support that saw me back into good health. I am healthy and as usual ernegetic to work within our communities. Use me.

Ko mama bomanyano ngivumeleni ngithi bambani niqinise evangelini. Usually, it is when women stand up and confront the challenges that societies begin to change. This does not in any way absolve boys and men from playing their role in finding solutions to society's challenges.

Thank you very much.