19 Aug 2021

COVID-19 pandemic has reversed many gains that government has made, as greater investment has to be channeled towards management, treatment and mitigation of the impact of the pandemic, the Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Mabuse Pule has said.

Officiating at a three-day virtual Northern Zone Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Forum on Wednesday, Mr Pule stressed the urgent need to coordinate interventions and stakeholders, so as to safeguard the huge investment made.

“This is why we have recently witnessed the introduction of the Reset Agenda by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi”. 

He called for reprioritisation and putting the fight against the pandemic at the top of the list to safeguard Batswana from dying by rechanneling funding to services aimed at mitigating COVID-19 impact and damage to the economy.

Mr Pule said there was also need for interventions that could effectively safeguard families from the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they played an important role in the upbringing of children. 

Such interventions, he said would help support families towards improved psychosocial wellbeing to ensure sustainability and lifelong benefits for children.

Despite significant strides made by government in creating new child partnership that seek to facilitate optimal function of children, their families and communities, the assistant minister expressed concern that children bared the greatest brunt of the pandemic.

“At the centre of this, has been the implementation of various methodologies aimed at facilitating self-sustenance, through life skills empowerment, economic empowerment and initiatives, provision of psychosocial support and establishment of community based initiatives,” he said.

Additionally, the assistant minister said some standards tools and manuals had also been developed to guide stakeholders in the provision of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support.

However, he said the overstretched resources were unable to meet the increased demand for services, as a result to the adverse increase in the number COVID-19 cases, as well as of orphans and vulnerable children.

The regional forum themed: Innovate, Integrate and Thrive, Mr Pule said, bared testimony to the government’s commitment towards facilitating stakeholders through decentralised structures, to play a leading role in the identification, prioritisation, planning and implementation of community based mental health and psychosocial support activities for the benefit of the most honourable, especially people living with disability, old aged, children and youth.

He said the forum also provided a platform for government to consolidate efforts to ensure that the provision of mental health and psychosocial support realised the returns that it had so much potential for, as it presented an opportunity to combine efforts towards building resilience through the use of locally based approaches, indigenous knowledge and research in the area of mental health and psychosocial support.

“This forum’s theme could not have been more appropriate as we seek new ways through which we mainstream this pandemic in our daily activities and interventions, as service providers, care givers and policy makers to mitigate its impact,” he added.

The National Children’s Council chairperson, Ms Mmamiki Kamanakao expressed concern on how the local media reported child abuse issues. 

She urged the media to report child abuse issues responsibly by safeguarding children’s rights and having children’s best interests at heart. 

She also called for the establishment of Village Child Protection Committees, saying through such committees the community and community leadership would help in providing psychosocial support to children.

Mother’s Union Orphan Care Centre chief executive officer, Ms Lesedi Selogelo called for all development partners to combine efforts in ensuring that children coped under the current difficult situation brought by the pandemic.

“COVID-19 has brought a shift in our lives, making it difficult to plan for the future while at the same time it left many hopeless,” she said.

The response to the pandemic, she said, had also brought mental distress, especially to the vulnerable population like children and had caused some people to believe that the existing legal instruments meant to protect children, like The Children’s Act and The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, carried less weight.

Contrary to the children’s right to education, play and freedom of association, she said the pandemic had caused prolonged closure of schools and closely monitored home confinements with the notion that the measures would protect them from the virus and save their lives.

For that reason, Ms Selogelo said, the forum came at the right time when the whole world was losing vulnerable lives due to the pandemic, adding that there was, therefore, need for clearly defined and sustainable interventions by all partners to combine efforts and ensure that children coped under the current difficult situations.

“The time is now, if not earlier, for children to also realise that they are key role players, as well and should be able to comprehend and welcome any initiatives that are meant to help them cope,” she said.

In his vote of thanks, Mahalapye West MP, Mr David Tshere thanked the organisers of the forum for having decided to hold it at Mahalapye, saying it would help sensitise the leadership on mental health and psychosocial support issues.

Children’s rights protection, Mr Tshere said, required concerted efforts by all relevant stakeholders as it was a sensitive matter and he therefore pledged support to the National Children’s Council.

He also encouraged parents, teachers and the entire leadership to join hands in safe guarding the children’s rights during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, more especially those of vulnerable children. 

By doing so, he said they would help children cope with the challenging effects of the pandemic. BOPA