- More than 26 000 people face losing meals, shelter, and support overnight because of North West NGOs funding cuts.
- Department of Social Development withdrew funding suddenly and without reasons.
- NGOs call for urgent return of funding or a real alternative to protect the vulnerable.
The North West Department of Social Development is under fire after it pulled funding from essential child protection, family support, and community care services. The North West NGOs funding cuts have put more than 26 000 people, most of them children, at risk of losing meals, shelter, and basic safety.
Local organisations have stepped in where government has failed, running safe homes for abused children, shelters for women escaping violence, and care centres for the elderly. With no funding, these lifelines are collapsing. NGOs stress this isn’t just about numbers, it’s about children, mothers, and grandparents being pushed back into hardship and neglect.
NGOs say they kept services running from April, trusting that funding would follow. Then in August, the department told them there would be no money, with no explanation. Letters and requests for answers to the Head of Department, the MEC, and other officials have gone unanswered.
The department’s own policies say child and family services are a priority. Yet those services are now the first to be cut. NGOs say the department has turned its back on the most vulnerable, repeating mistakes that led to a court case in Gauteng, where the High Court found the department at fault.
Urgent action needed
The group of NGOs, including Rata Social Services, Child and Family Welfare Potchefstroom, Childline North West, SAVF North West, SAVF Potchefstroom Gesinsorg, SAVF Zeerust, SAVF Lichtenburg, SAVF Klerksdorp, SAVF Rustenburg, and SAVF Atemelang Child and Youth Care Centre, represented by Lawyers for Human Rights, are calling for funding to be restored immediately for child protection, family support, elderly care, and shelters.
“If the department won’t do this, it should show how it will provide these services itself, for the same cost or less,” their statement says. “Anything less means abandoning people when they need help most.”
The NGOs are asking the public to help hold the department to account. “Communities can’t afford to lose the little safety and care they still have,” they warn.
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