Cape Town - The Safer Western Cape conference kicked off at The River Club in Cape Town on Tuesday, November 13th and will run until Wednesday, November 14th.
The conference is hosted by the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille, and the Department of Community Safety (DoCS).
Western Cape MEC for Community Safety Alan Winde, as well as Police Minister Bheki Cele, are some of the attendees scheduled to participate in the conference.
The Safer Western Cape conference brings together crime, safety and governance experts to identify innovative and practical ways to build a safer and more prosperous province. It will focus on collaboration between government, business and communities; evidence-based policy development and best practice interventions.
Issues to be addressed by local and international speakers will include violence prevention, gender-based violence, professional policing, gang violence, alcohol & drugs, environmental crime, commuter safety and rural safety.
Winde tackled " Building a safer Western Cape" and said that he hopes to build the Western Cape into the safest province in South Africa, but recognised that there is still a long way to go.
"Today's conference is really about bringing people around the world, and from around our country, who are going to look at how and what we are going to do differently to make this a really safe province," he said.
Community Safety MEC @alanwinde unpacks the aim of the #SaferWesternCapeConference
Video: @SISONKE_MD pic.twitter.com/gGGcKMatOL
— Cape Argus (@TheCapeArgus) November 13, 2018
Cele addressed the audience and said it is important for South Africans to not only be protected but that they feel safe as well.
"It should not be us telling you that you are safe, it should be you feeling that you are safe," Cele said.
"That is our job, every other thing we do, we do to culminate on that feeling of South Africans feeling that they are safe."
Police Minister Bheki Cele delivering his address at the #SaferWesternCapeConference