Grants Awareness Campaign

The Grants Awareness Campaign drew on both the mass and printed media and face-to-face interactions to mobilise and empower communities by sharing information - sometimes using the strategy of entertainment-education - to make it easier and more appealing for people to register for CSGs.

The campaign partnership had two aims:

• Increase awareness of grants;
• Increase grants registration, especially in rural areas.

It was a collaborative advocacy initiative to improve delivery systems through partnership with government. To this end, the partnership applied a range of advocacy tools. These included:

Alliance Building

This was carried out through different activities including newsletters, involvement of the membership in the activities, provincial and national workshops, and networking with other like-minded organisations e.g., the Basic Income Grant (BIG) Coalition, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), People’s Budget Campaign, and the education sector.

Media Advocacy

Media advocacy is about using the news media to bring about social change. The grants campaign engaged in an ongoing monitoring of issues related to grants as well as making appropriate responses. In addition, there was a concerted effort to pro-actively pitch stories with the media. To support the membership in this activity, key ACESS members were trained as spokespeople and media advocacy training was conducted for them. One of media advocacy success stories involved special coverage by Special Assignment in Mount Frere.

In addition to using the news media, other types of media were used. Specifically, entertaining media was used as a means of sharing details about how to apply for CSGs and motivating people to so. For example, the theme of social grants was integrated into the popular edutainment story lines of Soul City (series 6) and Soul Buddyz (series 2). Grants information was also broadcast on 9 radio stations across South Africa in the form of radio dramas. This season ran over a period 9 weeks - broadcast once a week - with most stations repeating the entire series.

Additional TV and radio airtime was used to distribute factual information on grants using public service announcements (PSAs). In addition, the printed medium was used as a way of informing the public: Posters, booklets, pamphlets, training manuals, and newsletters were printed and distributed. Campaign partners produced about 11,000 posters, 2 million booklets, 14,000 pamphlets, 500 training manuals and 1,000 newsletters during the campaign.

Entertaining strategies were incorporated into big, public outreach events called “jamborees” (or "imbizos"). Lasting a full day, the events were designed to serve as a "one-stop-shop" for grants. Both the Departments of Home Affairs and Social Development were present at each jamboree. This meant that at the jamboree, people could hear about grants and how to apply for them, and could then actually sign up then and there (if they had all the right documentation; otherwise they could apply for those documents). Regional radio stations advertised the jamborees and entertained people on the day. Additional entertainment was also provided to help make the day as fun as possible, creating a positive atmosphere while people were learning about grants. (To heighten this effect, popular Soul City actors were used as spokespeople in various components/messages developed for the campaign.)

Social Mobilisation

Face-to-face capacity building sessions were also held. ACESS hosted a number of grants literacy training workshops with its membership and support agencies. Training was based on the ACESS Social Security Training Manual, the first chapter of which covers social assistance for children. The purpose of the training was to equip people to deal with queries around grants, and to give them the skills they needed to go back into their communities and continue to raise awareness about grants and to help people who were eligible for grants to sign up for them. Workshops took place in 6 provinces of South Africa; a total of 175 organisations were involved. Participants included a wide cross-section of people, such as paralegals, social workers, educators (teachers, day care teachers and principals), government officials, community workers, and traditional leaders.

Lobbying

Child Participation Process:

In 2001, ACESS conducted participatory research workshops in all 9 provinces with groups of children facing the harshest socio economic circumstances. The opinions canvassed were presented to Parliament and to key decision makers, including the Minister of Education.

Influencing Policy and Legislation:

During this period, submissions were made in relation to social security. Legislation and policy targeted included: Budget process, Child Care Act, Social Assistance Act, and Child Justice Bill. The main messages throughout this policy process were:

• Increase the CSG to age 18 - Through a protracted advocacy campaign, the child support grant was extended to cover poor children up to the age 14. Before this, it was only available to children up to the age of 7. ACESS continues to advocate for a further extension of the grant to cover all economically poor children to the age of 18.
• Eliminate all the barriers to economically poor children accessing the CSG.
• Introduce a comprehensive package of benefits and services for economically poor children.

Measuring Impact:

• Alliance Building: membership increase, and membership level of involvement
• Media Coverage: articles/programmes, etc., and direct impact
• Registration Drive: grant uptake increase, replication of jamboree model, and strengthened relationships between partners

Children, Poverty.

The Grants Awareness Campaign sought to increase awareness about grants and to increase the number of children signed up to get the CSG. It is therefore possible to measure how successful the campaign was by looking at actual statistics from government about grant registrations and ID and birth certificate applications during the campaign. According to data supplied by ACESS, a total of 10,469 new applications for the CSG were made as a result of the campaign (4,403 at the actual jamborees and a further 6,066 in the two weeks after the first 9 jamborees). But even more importantly and because of the wide-ranging advocacy tools utilised in the campaign, the government reached its target number children in the system by July 2003 - a target that had been set for December 2003.