Avalon Cemetery

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City adds burial package to help poor AN increasing need to help indigent people bury their dead has lead to the City establishing a Social Burial Package. November 28, 2005 By Sipho Maduna INDIGENT people can expect decent burials, thanks to the City of Johannesburg, which will help poverty-stricken people with funeral arrangements. Poor families, that are either unemployed or earning wages too low to cover burial costs, still want to bury their loved ones in a dignified manner. At a meeting in 2004, a MEC/MMC forum noted an increasing need for indigent people to get help with funerals. The forum brought together provincial MECs and members of mayoral committees. That meeting agreed to initiate a process to share the responsibility for indigent burials between provincial and local government. A workshop was held with City Parks and the City's social development department, aimed at establishing the City's policy on indigent burials. There were similar workshops held at a political level between Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and the Gauteng departments of social development and local government. An urgent need was identified for a policy to manage the number of requests for burial assistance made to the City. Following this, a presentation was made to the Johannesburg mayoral committee in February this year. It proposed that: The City of Johannesburg's social development department should contract City Parks as the implementing agent; The burials be in any public section of any cemetery; A contract be entered into with a local undertaker to provide the burial requirements within the Social Burial Package; and A grave be provided for the burial of a deceased, with provision for the burial of one additional family member in the same grave. The proposed policy was guided by the Joburg 2030 Strategy that emphasises the City's commitment to the poor, and the City's Human Development Strategy aimed at dealing with conditions like poverty, inequality, HIV/Aids and social exclusion. The department of social development, in partnership with City Parks, has investigated an entry-level package and is proposing it includes costs for an undertaker and a coffin, totalling R700. The provincial department of local government allocated R1 920 000 to the City for the 2005/06 financial year for the burials. The initiative offers a Social Burial Package to poor bereaved families or those affected by or infected with HIV/Aids so they can bury their loved ones with dignity. The package includes services provided by the state mortuary, contracted undertakers, transport of the body, coffin and religious minister. Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 Print this Page E-mail this article to a friend Help using Joburg.org.za