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Hlabisa urges communities to protect children 

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Hlabisa urges communities to protect children :

The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Velenkosini Hlabisa, has urged communities to be vigilant and proactive in protecting the health and well-being of children.

The Minister was speaking at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, where he was visiting an eight-year-old boy. It was reported that the boy was hospitalised after he fell ill after consuming contaminated snacks purchased from a spaza shop in Mapetla, Soweto.

According to reports, the eight-year-old boy was taken to a nearby clinic after complaining of persistent pain.
After his condition deteriorated, he was transferred to the hospital over the weekend.

“Government plays a crucial role, but we also urge communities to take shared responsibility,” Hlabisa said on Friday. 

He urged communities to protect all children and work together with government to create safer and healthier environments.
In November 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a directive requiring all spaza shops and food-handling facilities to register with their respective municipalities. 

This action was prompted by incidents involving foodborne illnesses that resulted in over 890 cases and nearly 30 deaths since September 2024.

In October last year, six primary school children from Naledi, Soweto, died after allegedly eating snacks from a foreign-owned local spaza shop.

Some of the children were confirmed to have died of poisoning linked to the agricultural pesticide terbufos.

According to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), spaza shops are crucial in local communities, often serving as the primary source of essential goods in underserved areas.

“We are here on humanitarian grounds to stand in solidarity with this young boy and his family during this difficult time,” said Hlabisa. 

“It was our sincere hope that such incidents of poisoning would never happen again.”

READ | Hlabisa to visit child who consumed alleged contaminated snacks

The Minister believes that tragedies of this nature demand a united front and reaffirmed government’s commitment to working collaboratively to protect vulnerable communities. 

“We are here in the spirit of the District Development Model because incidents like these require the combined efforts of all of government and all of society,” he said.

The District Development Model aims to improve the coherence and impact of government service delivery with focus on 44 Districts and 8 Metros around the country as development spaces that can be used as centres of service delivery and economic development, including job creation.  – SAnews.gov.za
 

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Constitution Hill: From Injustice to Justice

Constitution Hill is a living museum located on the ridge between Braamfontein and Hillbrow. It is a site of extreme contrasts, housing both the notorious Old Fort prison complex—where some of the most horrific human rights abuses of the 19th and 20th centuries occurred—and the modern South African Constitutional Court, the highest guardian of the country’s democracy. This site is often referred to as the “Robben Island of Johannesburg” because it incarcerated nearly every major figure in the liberation struggle, including Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Joe Slovo, Albertina Sisulu, and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. However, its history is far older than the anti-Apartheid struggle; it was originally built in 1893 as a prison by the Boer Republic and later converted into a military fort to defend the city against the British during the South African War.