16 April 2021
Media Advisory
In a bid to protect children against COVID-19, the Deputy Minister of Social Development, Mrs Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, will on Monday, 19 April, handover Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centres in the Northern Cape province.
The Northern Cape is the seventh province to benefit following a successful delivery of PPEs to ECD centres in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. To date, over 4 200 children attending ECDs have benefitted. This initiative is aimed at assisting ECD centres in rural areas to comply with the COVID-19 regulations and enable them to open its doors for children while the country is still on Level 1 of the Risk Adjusted Strategy.
In February this year, the Department of Social Development launched the Early Childhood Development Employment Stimulus Relief Fund, to help ECD services to recover from the loss of income caused by COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of the closing date for applications of this funding, 764 programs in Northern Cape Province had applied for the fund.
The Department has now commenced with the payment of the fund and thus far, six batches of payments were made to 8 807 ECD services and 33 533 employees to the value of R140 369 138. The Department has also reviewed the number of people to be paid per ECD which was capped to four employees per ECD. This means that ECD services that have passed all the verifications will receive funding for all employees they applied for. DSD is encouraging all ECD services which received notification via SMS to update their details by no later than April 30, 2021.
Members of the media are invited to attend and cover the handover of PPEs event arranged as follows:
Date: Monday, 19 April 2021
Time: 10h00
Venue: Masakhane Educare, Bankhara Village in Kuruman, Northern Cape Province
Members of the media can RSVP by contacting Ms Makhosazana Mavuso on 072 732 9381 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Media enquiries may be forwarded to Ms Lumka Oliphant on 083 484 8067 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
