September 10, 2007
By Lucille Davie
IN the last financial year, more than 25 000 jobs were created through the City's Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). Of these, almost 4 000 jobs, or 14 percent, were for women. And the City aims to push that figure up to 40 percent.
Through its Women's Development Strategy, the City strives to promote women's health and wellbeing across all spheres, improving their lives as much as possible.
"The City of Johannesburg, under the leadership of Executive Mayor Amos Masondo, is not only committed to women's socio-economic empowerment but [has] created a lot of opportunities for women to improve their own quality of life through EPWP skills training and job creation projects as well as through many other programmes implemented collectively through our Women's Development Strategy," says the member of the mayoral committee for community development, Nandi Mayathula-Khoza.
Mayathula-Khoza co-ordinates the implementation of the Women's Development Strategy through the human development mayoral sub-committee.
President Thabo Mbeki made the EPWP a priority in his 2003 State of the Nation speech. The goal was to create a million jobs nationwide between 2004 and 2009, with at least 40 percent for women, 30 percent for young people aged between 18 and 35, and 2 percent for the disabled.
Over 25 000 jobs were created by the City's EPWP in the last financial year, in 137 projects, on which more than R9-million was spent by the City. Some 4 000 of these were created for women. The City has set a goal of creating 117 500 jobs by 2009 through the EPWP.
The Johannesburg Roads Agency and Johannesburg Water have gone a step further and have appointed permanent champions to run their EPWP projects.
Parks maintenance
City Parks created 374 new jobs and continued 1 329 existing jobs for women. Projects included landscaping and planting trees and creating pathways in parks around the city.
Several parks have been developed in the past year - Ormonde View and Central Parkway; Rose Street; Finetown; Bram Fischerville; Kaalfontein; Ebony; Eldorado and Campbell Street. In addition, Avalon, Eikenhof, Brixton and Braamfontein cemeteries have needed maintenance.
City Parks has a continuous maintenance cycle in all the City's parks, making sure grass is cut regularly and unsafe spots are secured.
Road upgrades
The Johannesburg Roads Agency implemented 26 EPWP projects in the 2006-07 financial year, creating 862 jobs; 158 of the beneficiaries were women.
Women road builders in Soweto
The jobs involved upgrading of gravel roads, laying stormwater drains and intersection upgrades across the city, from Ivory Park and Midrand in the north, to Alexandra, Newtown and Braamfontein, Soweto and down to Orange Farm in the far south.
Safe public places
Although not required to light parks, City Power has made a commitment to install lighting in all unsafe parks by 2010.
So far, lighting has been installed in Newtown, at Constitution Hill, on Rand Show Road in Nasrec, and in the jewel and fashion districts. A project to install lighting in Joubert Park is in the planning phase.
Eight regions participated in the "Take back the Night" campaign in November 2006. The Hillbrow campaign started at Constitution Hill, with 200 women walking through the suburb carrying candles, a symbolic gesture to indicate that women are reclaiming the right to be safe on the streets, day and night.
The public safety department has identified safe houses, in partnership with People Opposing Women Abuse.
Housing
So far, 3 364 house title deeds have been registered. Although data have not been collected regarding male and female applications, which will be remedied in future, registration information in Ivory Park distinguishes between male and female applications.
Approximately 69 percent of the title deeds in this township were registered to women.
Water provision
Joburg Water reports that for the 2006-07 financial year, it created 15 854 jobs under its EPWP, of which 1 584 were for women, 1 856 for youth and 23 for disabled.
These infrastructure projects include the design and construction of new pipelines, upgrading of existing pipelines, trench excavations, bedding of pipelines, pipe laying, backfilling and reinstatement of surfaces after the completion of all the activities.
More than 5 000 VIP toilets were installed during the 2006-07 financial year, and most of the beneficiaries were women.
Furthermore, more than 100 communal standpipes were provided in various informal settlements during the year. "As women are the ones who are responsible for collecting water for household use, this has brought a huge relief to them," reads the women's implementation plan.
Health interventions
Regarding health, a range of interventions have focused on improving the lives of women.
Women were traditionally deprived of proper healthcare through the inequitable provision of health services during apartheid. This has been compounded by living in far-off places and low socio-economic status.
The City has worked hard to counter the negative effects of this inequitable health provision in several ways: the upgrading and construction of health facilities; the initiation of health promotion forums; improved access to HIV testing services, including access to voluntary counselling and testing (VCT); and improved provision of maternal health services.
That the health function is divided between the province and the City, with help from several NGOs, further complicates matters. In all, 90 percent of health funds from the national government go to the provincial health department, and then filter downwards to the City.
At present there are 116 clinics spread across the city – 84 are City clinics, 30 are supplied by the Gauteng province, and two are NGO clinics. The City has nine mobile reporting units and four satellite clinics, which don't open every day.
It has six full-time doctors and nine part-time doctors and its budget for the 2007-08 year is R299 478-million.
Despite these improvements, backlogs still exist in the following areas: comprehensive antenatal care at all facilities to reduce the maternal mortality rate; enabling greater access to choice of termination of pregnancy; furthering the provision of on-site HIV testing and access to VCT services; and optimising access to cervical cancer screening services.
The City's health department has devised the Women's Health Programme Implementation Plan in an effort to improve its services to the city's women. Tangible results are being recorded.
Antenatal care and women's health
Comprehensive antenatal care is now available at 28 fixed City health facilities. The target for the 2007-08 year is to activate a further 14 fixed clinics. All clinics are able to provide initial assessments to pregnant women, and then refer them to the appropriate facility, where services are available that the City is unable to supply.
Regarding the choice of termination of pregnancy, in 2006 the City activated one facility, in addition to the four provided by the province. The goal, says Dr Baski Desai, the deputy director of public health, is to have access to these services at every City facility. In the meantime, counselling will be given and the person will be referred to a facility providing the necessary services.
A total of 30 422 PAP smears – the test for cervical cancer – were done at the City's health facilities between July 2006 and June 2007. This translates to an annual average of 6,8 percent of the target population of women aged 30 to 59.
"The challenge is [to] ensure that women return to check their results and that they do not default when they are referred to hospital," says the executive director for health, Refik Bismilla. Every year the goal is to improve this figure by 5 percent.
In all, 25 additional nurses were employed this year and eight satellite clinics were converted to fixed clinics.
The health department has an education service and awareness programmes on healthy lifestyles have been conducted in all regions. Awareness programmes on teenage pregnancies have been conducted at 23 high schools.
HIV and Aids
In its efforts to fight HIV and Aids, the health department has put in place the Jozi Ihlomile programme, which expanded to six new areas this year – Ivory Park informal settlement, Joe Slovo and Zamimpilo, Itsotseng, Kliptown, Alexandra and Protea South. The programme was previously established in Ivory Park, Sol Plaatjies, Dlamini Camp, Devland informal settlement, Denver Hostel and Finetown, where it still operates.
It seeks to strengthen partnerships with civic society, business and academic institutions. It consists of activities conducted by volunteers in a door-to-door programme that gives basic HIV and Aids, VCT, prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) and antiretroviral treatment; provision of basic care to ill people and referral for further treatment; collects a database of orphans and child-headed families and gives referrals to available services; assists destitute families with nutritional support through NGOs and the private sector; and links communities to the Department of Home Affairs to obtain birth certificates and identity documents.
"To date, there [has been a] positive response from the community with no reported incidences of violence against the volunteers and any misconduct on the part of volunteers," Bismilla says.
The Gauteng province helps with the financing of the programme, covering costs for training, debriefing, workshops and the stipends for the volunteers and project co-ordinators. Some 300 educators have been trained. All regions have established HIV and Aids forums and support groups.
VCT facilities are available at 78 fixed clinics, while 28 clinics have initiated the PMTCT programme. Antiretroviral treatment will be provided at two facilities in Region A – OR Tambo and Thuthukani clinics - as soon as accreditation from the national Health Department is received.
In the year July 2006 to May 2007, 60 451 HIV tests were done and some 7,4 million condoms were distributed.
Sex workers
A programme in partnership with various NGOs is in place in Region C - the Roodepoort area - to provide education and clinical services to sex workers. This involves looking at an exit programme for sex workers.
Peer educators are targeting hotels to teach sex workers about sexually transmitted diseases.
Arts, culture and heritage
The arts, culture and heritage services department devised a programme to support and promote women.
The most significant aspects were a variety of awareness-raising exhibitions, in particular a book launch, the Women in Arts Festival, and a programme in support of the 16 Days of Activism campaign, including film screenings, poetry and debates.
"These workshops, exhibitions and events are intended to give voice to women's issues and to create spaces where organisations working on women's issues can meet," says Steven Sack, the director in the department.
Exhibitions included Women in Mining at the James Hall Transport Museum and Women Behind the Wheel at Museum Africa. The Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) hosted an exhibition of 17 female artists in the exhibition Women: Photography and new Media and the Sandton Art Gallery hosted six women in Crafting Art.
The Hector Pieterson Museum hosted 268 learners from two schools for a workshop focusing on Women in Resistance Music. And Museum Africa hosted Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan, who launched two books celebrating women - one on poetry and the other a compilation of work from 70 female writers.
Art Bank Joburg also encourages young, emerging artists, both female and male, by buying artworks from them, which it then hires out to corporates. Its policy is to acquire art mostly from emerging artists – up to 70 percent.
For its launch in June 2006, it commissioned a huge tapestry, consisting of 10 panels, that was the work of 20 women crafters from Hillbrow.
The JAG also has a policy of encouraging emerging artists. The curator of contemporary collections, Khwezi Gule, actively engages artists, undertakes research and visits artists' studios.
"The gallery seriously weighs up issues of gender, race and diversity when programming exhibitions. The programme, although unfounded, is a success and is meeting its objectives," Sack adds.
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