Message from Councillor Logie Naidoo, Deputy Mayor of the eThekwini Municipality, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary dinner banquet of the Chatsworth Community Care Centre at the Ocean Conference Centre, Durban, on 28 November 2008.
On behalf of the eThekwini Municipality and the people of the City of Durban, I salute the Chatsworth Community Care Centre on its trailblazing milestone as one of the pioneers of victim empowerment in our city and the new South Africa.
This home-grown community-based organisation, the brainchild of Chatsworth’s stalwart activist, respected community lawyer and chairman of the board of trustees, Siven Samuels, and social-welfare activist and head of secretariat, Marlene Abrahams, and the founding committee members, was launched with a baptism of fire in 1998.
I recall vividly the arrival of a badly needed forum for voiceless victims of domestic violence when the ANC government endorsed the new-wave project with the high-profile presence of the then Safety and Security Minister, Steve Tshwete.
In the spirit of our private-public partnership that we continue to foster in our quest to get companies and communities to support the city government in meeting the delivery rate of the city’s 2020 vision, chiefly to provide a “Better Life for All” by creating jobs, fighting poverty and diseases and providing homes, the Chatsworth Community Care Centre entered the NGO scene at a critical juncture of the nation’s post-apartheid development and transformational phase.
On this tenth anniversary, the Centre richly deserves to celebrate its achievement when all the role-players and stakeholders gather at the Ocean Conference Centre on 28 November 2008 to break bread, pat each other on the back and navigate the two crucial years ahead leading up to 2010.
From humble beginnings in a church hall, the Chatsworth Community Care Centre secured funding from Lotto and other donor agencies and then reached out to people in crisis and provided love and support to the desperate and destitute in impoverished communities.
The city also wishes to salute over 50 volunteers and the 25 people who became functional volunteers. The Centre’s positive leadership resulted in encouraging the Chatsworth SAPS to open a 24 hour service to handle domestic violence, child abuse, wife-battering, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy and other social ills.
The Centre’s linkages with Childline provided additional professional support for social workers to attend to sexually- abused children.
This is the hour to honour the Centre for its sterling role during one of Chatsworth’s biggest human tragedies, the death of young people during the Throb nightclub disaster in March 2000. Recognition has to be given for the efforts with the Durban South Doctors’ Guild in the opening of the first “One-Stop Rape Crisis Centre”.
With domestic violence rising daily posing the biggest threat to healthy family lifestyle, right living and communications, the Centre has performed excellently under pressure and amid shrinking resources in its handling thousands of cases on a monthly average of 200-300 incidences.
As the Centre heads for another decade of community upliftment, let me assure one and all that the progressive, people-centred eThekwini Municipality recognises and endorses your valiant efforts in providing relief for all the communities in one of our biggest housing estates and CBDs in the true spirit of Batho Pele (Putting People First).
Have a good one and enjoy your collective achievements and wonderful milestone.
Ends
Researched and written by Marlan Padayachee GreenGold Africa Communications on behalf of the Mayor’s Office, eThekwini Municipality: greengold@telkomsa.net/ 031 266 5599/ 266 1762
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