Johannesburg - On Tuesday, February 21, the pride of the SANDF will take to the streets of Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal, parading up and down the streets accompanied by the army band and an array of military equipment.
But this year’s edition of Armed Forces Day (AFD), first held in 2012, will have been very different – and possibly life-changing – for a group of South Africans who often find themselves marginalised, people who often struggle to make it in the towns and cities of South Africa; the deep rural communities.
Getting them back into the mainstream is the rationale behind Project Owethu, an initiative by the South African Military Health Service (SAMHS), the medical arm of the defence force, which will have spent the fortnight before AFD23 on a pioneering outreach initiative in the uMhlathuze Municipality which encompasses Richards Bay and Empangeni in KZN.
Over the last decade, each AFD has been held in a different province and increasingly marked by more than the combined services parade commemorating the sinking of the SS Mendi and the loss of 616 South Africans, 607 of them black South African soldiers, in the freezing waters of the English Channel on February 21, 1917.
In recent years, AFD has been preceded by a week-long fan park allowing members of the public to view static exhibitions of current military equipment used by the SANDF and speak to serving members of the defence force.
Each AFD has also been marked by a particular legacy project, normally the renovation of a school, old age home or youth rehabilitation centre and the donation of equipment like computers, but these have always been limited to the actual city or town that is hosting that year’s edition of AFD.
Now, SAMHS intends to give even more impact to the AFD every year through the launch of Project Owethu. It is a project that has the personal support of the country’s top military medic, Surgeon-General Lieutenant-General Ntshavheni Mahapa, and is being run under the auspices of the Area Military Health formation, commanded by Brigadier-General Mcebisi Mdutywa.
Project Owethu, which means ‘ours’ in isiZulu, was first conceptualised last July and is about reaching out to the most marginalised communities in South Africa, who are often excluded from services that the rest of the country takes for granted, whether ID cards and birth certificates to access social grants or health care that can make an immediate difference to their lives; like cataract surgery or dental care.
“Last year we put the smiles on people’s faces in the Richards Bay area during Exercise SHARED ACCORD, working in tandem with the US Military. Imagine the smile on a person who realises that their teeth have been fixed for the first time in their life. Imagine the confidence that it gives them,” said Mdutywa.
On Monday, 68 medical professionals – ranging from medical specialists to veterinary surgeons, paramedics, nurses, primary health-care specialists and environmental health-care experts – went out into the rural areas of uMhlathuze with mobile clinics to start a two-week project ranging from health screening and referrals to onsite medical procedures in mobile clinics.
Some of the operations that will done on site include cataract operations, dental care and even the fixing of dentures for those that have them. Some of the people will have been sick for some time because of the difficulty of accessing medical care.
“We will see cases that we don’t normally see,” said Mdutywa. “It is only when you go into the field that you build up experience in dealing with health conditions that you would not normally be exposed to in medical school.”
The project has identified five communities for particular attention. All of them are either child-headed or dependent on a single parent. All of them are vulnerable. Project Owethu team members will check their health and the health of their animals. Working in tandem with the relevant government departments of social development and agriculture, they will get birth certificates and ID cards, to be able to access social grants as well as given seed and agricultural implements to help them till their land.
The rationale of the project, said Surgeon-General Lieutenant=General Ntshavheni Maphaha, is to empower the recipients and break the cycle of poverty. During the two-week cycle, SAMHS soldiers will also be looking to encourage young adults who are either in matric or who have left school but are within the age parameters to consider applying for the SANDF’s two-year Military Skills Development System.
“That way,” said Mdutywa, “when we have left, there will be a breadwinner there.”
For families where the children are too young to consider being recruited, Project Owethu will look at getting them educational assistance working with in tandem with the City of uMhlathuze’s existing mentorship programmes in maths and science so that they can get the best possible marks in their final exams to be able to go to university when they finish school and increase their chances of getting a job afterwards.
SAMHS will also be visiting the University of Zululand from February 15 to 17 as a scarce skills mobilisation initiative accompanied by a mini fan park and capacity demonstrations like parachuting, helicopter stretcher hoisting and hot extractions, to encourage graduates to consider a career in military medicine specifically or in the SANDF generally.
Project Owethu runs from February 6 to 17. On Saturday, February 18, the next phase of the initiative will be formally announced: a five-year programme which will be introduced every year in the province in which AFD is being held and running until July for Mandela Day when, instead of 67 minutes, Owethu team members will do 67 hours of community service. This will be a range of health and social wellness interventions that will run from that Sunday to Saturday every year in the week of Nelson Mandela’s birthday.
“The aim, as much as we want to attend to their health needs, is to break the cycle of hopelessness,” Mdutywa said. “Let’s improve the lives of our people, one community at a time, but 67 hours allows us to do more than one community.”