AfriForum establishes integrated safety network in West Rand
AfriForum’s division for Community Safety set up its second regional safety network this past week. This is the second network of its kind that will be established nationwide this year. This regional safety network is based in the West Rand in Gauteng and will follow an integrated approach to safety and cooperation over a wide area between AfriForum’s neighbourhood watches in Roodepoort, Randfontein, Krugersdorp, Fochville and Westonaria.
The civil rights organisation’s first safety network was established in January in the Southern Cape.
During the year, AfriForum will establish many more similar safety networks for the neighbourhood watches to function more effectively at a regional and national level. AfriForum currently has 172 neighbourhood and farm watch structures nationwide and the majority of these structures will eventually function as part of a safety network.
According to Jacques Broodryk, AfriForum’s chief spokesperson on Community Safety, it is essential for safety structures to be able to cover larger areas as it has many advantages. “Safety networks that extend over larger areas will enable us to combat criminal activity in a larger area. Likewise, information, such as that collected with the help of live camera monitoring, can be shared more widely and the movement of suspects between areas can be monitored much better. This will also better enable our safety structures to identify and analyse crime trends to be able to act preventively,” says Broodryk.
“More people realise that they will have to start playing an active role themselves in combatting crime in their communities, because the South African Police Service is simply not capable of it. AfriForum wants to make it as easy and efficient as possible for people to become part of the solution and improve the safety of their communities in an efficient way,” concludes Broodryk.
Join your nearest AfriForum neighbourhood watch at www.afriforum.co.za/en/what-do-we-do/neighbourhood-watches/.
