The Western Cape’s MEC of Community Safety, Albert Fritz, held an internal workshop on Monday focusing on its approach to violence prevention for youth. Fritz said that violence is a public health -, police and correctional services issue. Addressing violence requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society response.
The programme included a focus on conceptual
design, looking at the Western Cape Safety Plan and the public health approach
to violence prevention.
After the workshop, the MEC had a session on
situational analysis on youth in the province, after the workshop which included
an overview on the Department’s programmes and content mapping. The program was
concluded with a session on building the framework.
MEC Fritz said: “The discussions were
underpinned and guided by the Western Cape Safety Plan. The WC Safety Plan aims
to halve the murder rate in the province over the next ten years through a
combination of additional law enforcement and a range of violence prevention
programmes. These programmes will particularly target the 11 priority areas
where and when crime is most likely to take place.”
Fritz reflected on the day’s happenings: “We
enjoyed robust and fruitful discussion yesterday (On Monday) which helped us to
map out the impact of violence on youth, and how best we can prevent it. In
particular, we discussed the impact of alcohol in propelling violence and
related smart interventions that can be taken to address this. Going forward,
the lens of public health will be critical in our approach to reducing and
preventing the prevalence of violence in our province.”
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