Every Wednesday, my sister makes sure that I get a copy of the News.
My favourite section is the letters, and I am always fascinated by the stories. One of these letters was written by Thabile Mange, under the title The future lies with civic organisation (News edition dated 5 August).
To be honest with you, Mange, Sanco is in a state of shock that you made the following statement: ‘The masses should organise themselves and form (a) strong and powerful civic organisation/s’. Just to remind you, Thabile, about civic organisation history.
The civic movement initiated, together with other political groupings like the ANC, the formation of United Democratic Front (UDF). The UDF came to symbolise the broad united action in resistance of apartheid within South Africa. The civic movement was regarded as the strongest aspect of the UDF.
Within the UDF, the civic movement operated as a national, provincial and regional structure, as opposed to just a local organisation. Following the unbanning of the ANC in 1990, the UDF was disbanded. The South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) was formally launched on the 21 March 1992 in Uitenhage/ Tinarha (now known as the Nelson Mandela Metropole).
I hope now my leadership has been clarified. Sanco was founded in 1992 as an umbrella body for the 3 000 or so civic associations which existed in South Africa.
Sanco is the country’s largest unified community-based organisation. Our members represent households totalling about six million people from all walks of life.
We have made significant progress in making direct contact with people on the ground. We have listened to all their challenges. We now need to make sure that these challenges are addressed and resolved timeously. If not, we must be able to explain the reason why their concerns cannot be resolved.
The organisation’s guiding motto is: ‘People Centred and People Driven’, and Sanco is committed to promoting the process of nation building, truth and reconstruction, transformation, peace and prosperity. As a veteran, my duty to the organisation is to continue to mobilise and unite communities in order to find solutions to challenges.
The mushrooming opportunistic concerned groups must find no space to confuse our membership and communities. They should not become an alternate or a source of hope to our citizens, as they will confuse them and leading them astray.
This will mean that there should be no corner of the city where the organisation is not strongly represented.
