Western Cape Department of Local Government helps in securing a safe space for the Nuwerus Crèche

“When stakeholders work together, good things can happen,” Anton Bredell, Provincial Minister for Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning said, referring to the official handover of the site of a planned activity centre for the Nuwerus Crèche on the West Coast today.

During municipal public participation and ward committee engagements, the plight of the Crèche at Nuwerus was identified for attention. The Nuwerus Crèche is the only facility within the area that is still housed in an informal structure. The vision is to create an Activity Centre for the crèche inside the building of the church, situated next to it. 

Minister Bredell thanked the following private and government departments who made contributions to the project:

• Nuwerus Uniting Reformed Church availed a room to be used by the ECD as an activity center.
• Santam, which donated R60 000 for the revamp of the activity center, and R20 000 towards Diakonal Dienste in support of their programmes. 
• The Asla Foundation contributed R110 000 for fitting out the Activity Center.
• Department of Correctional Services will be providing cleaning services. 
• Woodenscapes donated and installed the Play Equipment (Jungle Gym)
• Vredendal Signs donating the signage for the facility. 
• The Department of Infrastructure donated the wash basins, and its sports committee, which donated R2 500 towards the project.

Minister Bredell said the project was coordinated through the Department of Local Government’s Citizen Interface Programme, which focus on improving the interaction between the people of rural communities and government entities. 

The purpose of the Citizen Interface Programme is to build the resilience and self-sustainability potential of deep rural small nodes and communities in the Northern areas of the Matzikama Municipality by ensuring access to basic government services and information, as well as linking external and internal resources to localised needs or challenges.  It is essentially a partnership programme, and has since its inception, successfully delivered various projects.

The Programme has over the past few years put various efforts and emphasis on supporting and revitalising the early childhood development centres in the area. All this was done in partnership with the Department of Education, as well as other state and non-state partners. These include amongst others: Providing toy-libraries and educational materials, registration of facilities, scoping reports and identifying funding partners to revamp and rebuild facilities.