TOURISM
SOCIAL
ANOTHER EXCITING YEAR AHEAD FOR SDB
NON PROFITS
An exciting one day strategic planning
session was recently held with the South
Durban Basin Non Profit Organisations,
Ethekwini Line Departments and Provincial
Departments at the Durban Botanical
Gardens. The session was aimed at looking
at 2007 under review in it terms of
successes and challenges, as well charting
a way forward for 2008. Participants present
were part of the SDB Social Programmes
Group (SProG) which meets on a monthly
basis and has been in operation for over 3
years. According to Eurakha Singh, Social
Development Manager, “SPROG serves as a
platform for networking of a wide range of
stakeholders such as NPO’S, Provincial and
National government Departments,
Businesses and local communities and
serves to engage them into taking a lead role
in addressing social development issues at
community level.” Workshop participants
reported that they were satisfied that SPROG
has supported  and added value to the work
of NPO’S, CBO’S and FBO’S; and has played
a  co-ordination  role for social programmes
in the South Basin and has promoted the
sharing of resources that has bridged the
gap between government departments and
local communities. Lee Deathe, SDB Area
Manager, reported that he was pleased to
see that SProG was on the right track and
addressing the current needs of
communities. The workshop agreed that the
SProG 2008 focus will be on:  
•        HIV/AIDS
•        Drugs
•        Crime
•        Housing
•        Job Creation

According to Mrs Bassier, from the Merewent
Community Police Forum, “the workshop
was excellent in terms of getting to meet new
people, share ideas and come up with a way
forward. I was excited about the list of
projects for the year and I will be involved in
all of them”. Sathie Chinnasamy from
Ethekwini Health said that it was a valuable
workshop as it involved different
stakeholders. It was good to see
communities taking ownership and charting
the way forward for themselves, concluded
Chinnasamy. In welcoming  the NGO’S, Lee
D’eathe SDB Area Manager acknowledged
the important work that the NGO’S undertook.
He was pleased that the workshop had
successfully developed a list of priority areas
that needed to be addressed. He said as an
Area Based Management we see our role as
that of building partnerships to address
delivery issues at all levels so as to create
sustainable solutions.     
Summer beach walks
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