The 5000 club consists of residents and business people who live or work in the DA Sandton Constituency as well as other friends. It goes out every second or third month with an update on parliament and political activity in the North of Johannesburg. Please add friends to this group or email me their addresses. We now have over 3300 readers and we hope to grow it to 5000 by the end of 2010!

Stop Press:  DA Public Meeting: Wednesday this week (21 July) 7pm at the Blairgowrie Recreation Centre, Park Lane Drive, Blairgowrie. Guest Speaker: Jack Bloom MPL: “Crisis in the Health Department”

 Stop Press 2: Premier Helen Zille and DA MEC Bongi Madikizela will be visiting Sandton and Alexandra on 18 September. You will be invited to a fundraising dinner and a community public meeting where you will be able to hear what the DA would like to do with Johannesburg and Gauteng and more of what we are successfully doing in the Western Cape. Watch this space!

In this edition:

1. Education Policy is Changing

2. Johannesburg is Changing

3. DA Assists victims of fire in Alexandra:

4. Petition to Widen Conrad Drive Bridge

5. Becoming an Activist

6. DA Sponsors young girl’s education


Have you visited my webpage and facebook page yet? Find a collection of parliamentary information, news clips, speeches, blogs and so on. 

1. Education Policy is changing

It is interesting to note that the new education policy has finally done away with outcomes based education (OBE). Clearly this policy failed to improve the quality of school education or the pass rates. The new policy, as outlined by the minister, has cleared the way for the prioritizing of English, plus a home language as medium of instruction. While this does not remove mother tongue education completely, the emphasis has shifted. It is a crucial decision that affects every South African and it is significant in that it is an acknowledgment, in a sense, that we cannot offer quality education in schools, in all 11 Official Languages. Research has indicated that many learners being educated in many of our home languages are struggling to pass their matric/Grade 12 and are struggling at university. The argument seems to be that it is virtually impossible to teach the mathematics and science-based subjects in most of our indigenous African languages as their vocabulary does not cater for scientific terminology and in some cases the language is not standardised. The “township” version is quite different to the “deep” rural version of the language, making curriculum development and textbook development incredibly difficult. The way out of the cul-de-sac is to start in mother tongue education while bringing the English competency up to par and then teaching the majority of subjects in English in later school years. This however does say something about how we will, as a nation, have to deal with our language policy in future and not just our educational one. It is bound to be controversial, but unless all of our 11 languages are standardized and developed to include all scientific terminology, and all of that reduced to writing, I cannot see any alternative to the prioritizing of English. English Competency will in any event assist the youth in the future business world, to which they are destined.

2. Johannesburg is Changing

The local government elections are just around the corner, probably in April 2011. The municipal Demarcation Board has indicated that Johannesburg has too few wards for the size of the city and the number of voters. In order to correct this, it is in the process of finalizing the redrawing of ward boundaries and creating new wards. It appears that over 20 new wards will be created and others will be reduced in size. Councillors currently struggle to oversee such large areas and assist so many residents in their wards. The additional wards are definitely a step in the right direction. The DA will undoubtedly win many more wards in 2011 and will work towards a "coalition for change" to take over the administration of the City. If we can win awards for running Cape Town, we can certainly win awards for fixing Johannesburg, if given the opportunity. Join up as a member and help us win the city. Call your local ward councilor, branch chair or come to one our public meetings or shopping centre tables to sign up! See: www.da.org.za for more information.

3.DA Assists victims of fire in Alexandra

In the early hours of Sunday the 4th July, a shack fire broke out on the corner of 1st avenue and 1st street, Alexandra. Residents desperately fought the flames, while waiting for the fire brigade, which arrived more than an hour later. In the  aftermath, a total of 29 shacks were destroyed, effecting 72 people and 5 infants. One woman  tragically burned to death.

However, the official responsible for organizing temporary accommodation was at a FIFA party and had turned his phone off. All attempts to contact another official who could make arrangements failed, as no one else from the City was available to assist.

It was late afternoon before the disaster management team responded with food and blankets for the victims. The police returned to collect some of the dead woman’s bones, which had been left behind by emergency services and put them in a shopping packet. Shockingly, no attempt was made to determine the cause of the fire, which many residents believed it to be arson.

According to our councillor, Andrew Stewart, “At the close of the day, temporary accommodation had still not been arranged and it was left up to some DA community activists and I to try and organize accommodation for residents and other disaster relief”. A staggering two days later, Councillor Andrew Stewart was contacted by officials who had been at the FIFA party, to tell him that some sheets of tin would be provided to rebuild the burned shacks.

4. Petition to widen Conrad Drive Bridge

The DA is championing a petition to have Conrad Drive, in Blairgowrie, widened. The traffic from the West of the City is blocked by the Braamfontein Spruit with very few bridges over the river. This affects the East-West mobility within the Northern Suburbs. The City has acknowledged this problem and designed a wider bridge for Conrad Drive. However other budget priorities trump a new bridge every year, and more than a decade has gone by since the planning for a new bridge was undertaken. DA Councillors Alison Van Der Molen and Gordon Mackay, together with their DA branches, have already collected over one thousand signatures to our petition, calling on the city to prioritise the funding for a new bridge to be built. Contact Alison on 0834419325 and Gordon on 079 498 8646 to get involved.

5. Becoming an Activist

One of the things that makes South Africa very different to Zimbabwe is an activist public and its legacy. Activists have persuaded government to change policy on everything form HIV to Women’s rights. It is the size of civil society and the scope of the activism, together with the opposition in government that makes such a huge difference. But there is still so much to do. You can make a difference to the country that you live in and I encourage everyone to take up the challenge. Find an issue that you are passionate about and which affects others in our community and take up the cause. You can write to the newspapers, organize a pressure group or contact your DA reps to help improve our lives, whether it's help for the elderly, an accountable City Council, improved service delivery or rights for the marginalized, there is lots to do. Get active and start writing to the papers. You can bring about a change.

6. DA Sponsors young girl’s education

During our 2010 Education Campaign we became aware of a young pupil, Valerie, from the Sandton View School who had recently lost both of her parents and was homeless and about to enter her matric year. Our hearts went out to her. The School managed to find her accommodation with a grandparent in Tembisa, but she was unable to get in to school everyday. The Sandton Constituency raised the funds and sponsored her transportation costs and other support and we promised to check in on her during the year to see that she is able to finish her final year and her final exams. Thanks to the DA supporters who continue to make it possible to be involved in practical ways in our community through your donations.