On Friday, 17 September 2010, the above mentioned workshop was held in Mpumalanga, Nelspruit, hosted by the National Welfare Forum (NWF) and Mpumalanga Welfare Forum (MWF) in partnership with Amnesty International South Africa,

Black Sash Gauteng and Lucabantu Productions with approximately 30 participants from various organisations. The event was a combination of presentations, dialogue, story-telling with drumming and singing about the MDGs and social welfare.

The first part of the workshop was facilitated by the HRE Officer and covered what the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are, their history and background, and why they matter. Mr. Buntu Tembani from Lucabantu Productions told a story in relation to some of the MDGs about a village that had been poverty stricken through land invasions and a young boy losing his parents through hunger and malicious diseases. The story had a positive ending where people lived and worked in unity, children attending schools, food security and free from malicious diseases. The story was followed by songs of hope and encouragement and dance. Participants were encouraged to play some traditional musical instruments and were pleased by the entertainment.

The second part of the workshop was facilitated by Mr. Wellington Ntamo from Black Sash Gauteng, on the available Social Assistance in South Africa (grants). He went through the various grants for children and adults, who qualifies to get grants, where and how to apply for the grants. The participants were very pleased to hear about this kind of assistance from government as they had not heard of the other grants such as the Social Relief of Distress and the War Veteran Grants.

The most important outcome of the workshop was the establishment of working relations with key organisations i.e. Black Sash and GCAP. Subsequent to the successful implementation of this activity, Amnesty International was invited to join GCAP in support of the THEMBA (the movie) Grassroots Distribution Campaign. In particular, the HRE officer has been asked to accompany GCAP on its visits to disadvantaged communities and to talk about the human rights dynamic of the MDGs.