Cape Town - The Department of Social Development wants to tackle student issues and is zooming in on universities is concerned about the wellbeing of students at tertiary institutions and held an information session for first-year students to urge them to report gender-based violence and abuse.
As CPUT kick-started orientation week on Wednesday, the department held an exhibition urging students to be proactive in reporting gender-based violence and abuse and in seeking help for substance abuse.
“We have many programmes; the reason for us being at the university is to raise awareness. We are currently focusing on two main programmes: one is substance abuse and the other gender-based violence.
“We have partnered with universities so we can talk about these issues,” said Gogie Itumeters, social work manager at the department.
Itumeters said many campuses did not have sufficient policing or channels for students to report crime.
In 2016, the Department conducted dialogues in Eastern Cape-based tertiary institutions to address challenges faced by students.
Among some of the findings from the dialogues was the high rate of substance abuse.
The students asked the department to roll out anti-substance abuse programmes at the universities
They asked that the department assign social workers to campuses to attend to the needs of students in need of counselling.
According to the students, the lack of extra-curricular activities contributed to their abuse of substances, and they appealed to the department to introduce extramural activities.
An anti-substance abuse campaign was launched in December. The department also formed a partnership with the National Emergency Response Team, an online platform which makes it easy for the public to report their emergency via WhatsApp.