​As part of the government's continuous efforts to empower communities, the Gauteng Department of Social Development together with other government Departments and stakeholders brought the service delivery blitz closer to the community of Boiketlong Informal settlement near Sebokeng, on Thursday.
The aim of the blitz was to render service of government to the residents. Government is also seeking to accelerate service delivery in the province's townships, hostels and informal settlements as introduced by Premier Panyaza Lesufi.
Various government departments such as Department of Labour, South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), and South African Police Service (SAPS), including other non-profit organisations such as Bokamoso Centre of Excellence and ReachOut Community Projects were also there to render their services to the residents.
According to the community development supervisor Maditaba Sootho their aim is to address the challenge of lack of access to information while ensuring that the vulnerable and neglected communities in the informal settlements receive the much-needed free services of government. She said this is following the Department's previous community engagement followed by the door-to-door profiling that was conducted in the area which have uncovered several challenges such as teenage pregnancy, substance abuse and unemployment.
"As Gauteng Social Development, after profiling this area, we have realized that this community needs an integrated government services approach to address their challenges", she said.
Sootho added that teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, youth unemployment and undocumented children are among the major problems that engulf the area.
"We are pleased that SASSA is here and the Department of Labour including SAPS to render services to our people, and we have partnered with various NPO's that are providing different types of skills training to encourage young people to utilize their services because they are free and fully funded by government", added Sootho.
Hundreds of community members including young people came in their numbers to among others grab opportunity of registering themselves on the Employment Service of South Africa Databases with the Department of Labour.
SAPS brought their mobile office to assist community members with certification on site and to attend to some of their complaints.
Katleho Thebeko (23) residing at Boiketlong Informal Settlement said although life is a struggle in their area because of the lack of service delivery, they were grateful to the departments that help people with job applications and to address issues of HIV/AIDS that is very rife and further to tackle the problem of substance abuse.