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- Members of early childhood development centres and their supporters will embark on a week-long national protest.
- C19 People’s Coalition, a civil society body, says the protest is against Minister Lindiwe Zulu's announcement that R1.3 billion will be allocated to employ compliance monitors.
- The body wants the minister to redirect the money to support ECD workforce.
Members of early childhood development (ECD) centres and their supporters will start a week-long national protest to "save" some centres from shutting down.
The protest will start on Monday 17 August and run until Friday, the C19 People’s Coalition said on Monday.
The coalition is against the announcement made by Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu that R1.3 billion will be allocated towards employing 36 000 youth compliance monitors in ECD.
It wants Zulu to redirect the money to support the ECD workforce.
The coalition's Eric Atmore told News24 that they had been pushing for three months for the department to save ECDs, because many were currently closing.
He also said there was no detail on how the money will be allocated.
"The R1.3 billion is ripe for corruption," he said.
In a statement issued on Monday morning, the coalition said: "Minister Zulu stated that R1.3 billion out of the President’s Covid-19 economic stimulus package would be allocated to the short-term employment of 36 000 youth compliance monitors for ECD programmes.
READ | Over 12 000 early childhood development centres have applied to reopen
"An illogical allocation when without urgent
financial aid, more than 175 000 long-term ECD workforce jobs are likely to be
decimated as a result of the pandemic and the national lockdown."
It said:
It said these jobs belonged mostly to women working
in some 30 000 centres across the country, which without support were set to
close their doors permanently.
"In addition, almost one million children will be affected by the closure of these centres, and one million other jobs that depend on access to childcare will be affected indirectly."
It also said it had been campaigning for the ECD workforce to receive support from the department.
It said a letter was sent to Zulu on 7 August, asking for a meeting and calling on her to redirect the R1.3bn to support the ECD workforce directly and to disburse these funds in the form of ECD Continuity Grants.
It said:
On 13 August 2020, it sent a follow-up letter to
the minister and had yet to receive a reply, it said.
"ECD members and their supporters will be participating in digital/online and in-person pickets across the country to increase the pressure on Minister Zulu to respond."
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