South African’s National Liberation Movement

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Imvuselelo

Imvuselelo Campaign Media Statement

12 August, 2010

In May this year, the President of the ANC, cde Jacob Zuma, launched the Imvuselelo campaign at Kwamhlushwa Stadium, Enkomazi in the Mpumalanga province.

During this launch, we received many people from different walks of life and from other political parties joining the ANC in numbers.

The Imvuselelo campaign is an ANC campaign aimed at building strong and vibrant ANC branches, which are capable of providing leadership to all sectors of the population and which are visible in community development efforts and struggles at ward level.

In terms of the Polokwane 52nd National Conference resolutions the Imvuselelo Campaign will intensify branch work in each community, to ensure sustainable mass work and establish ANC branches as vanguard of their communities, and to make branches the focus of political and ideological work of senior leadership and cadreship of the movement.

As part of the Imvuselelo Campaign, the ANC kick-started a massive recruitment campaign aimed to enlist a million members by the time of its centenary in 2012. To this end, the ANC has recruited seventy two thousand six hundred and twenty three (72623) new members and we are still steadfast in recruiting more. The total number of current ANC membership stands at seven hundred and forty nine thousand one hundred and twelve (749112) members excluding the one’s mentioned above.

It is very clear that by 2012, we would have surpassed the one million target we benchmarked for ourselves. This is a clear indication that the ANC is a growing organization not only by acquiring more votes during elections, but by the size of its growth in membership and the established branches. This is a clear indication that the ANC is an integral part of our communities. ANC lives, ANC leads.

The campaign’s primary target is the membership and branches of our movement and it finds expression through dynamic contact with the masses of our people.

Branches where membership recruitment is actually happening will use the Imvuselelo handbook which will be a guiding document for such a purpose.

In achieving the Imvuselelo campaign objectives, we have decided the implement the campaign in different phases.

PHASE 1: Preparations and training. This phase involves the political and practical preparations of branch members through workshops on the objectives and phases of the campaign, and on how to conduct door-to-door work. Branch members should be able to explain the principles, policies and programmes of the ANC, the function of the household questionnaire, and should be able to respond to difficult questions occupants might raise.

PHASE 2: door-to-door information collection. This is the phase in which door-to-door teams will conduct their first visit to all the households in the ward. They will collect information and record it in the “Household Questionnaire”.

PHASE 3: Action on issues raised. Once all households have been visited, and the common issues arising from the questionnaires identified, the branch should meet and decide what action to take on these issues. This process should also be seen as part of political education, empowering members to engage with local development issues and identifying how best problems can be resolved. It must necessarily involve ANC councilors for the area. It will also be necessary to look at what the best form is for providing feedback to the community. They may include another round of visits to households.

PHASE 4: Recruitment. Door-to-door teams will visit all households to recruit new members and check that existing members are up to date with their membership subscription. The recruitment of new members in each ANC Branch must be done in the context of contributing to the target of one million membership by the centenary of the ANC as determined by our forebears in the 1942 ANC National Conference. They should make sure that existing and new members know about the meetings of the branch and how to get involved in branch activities.

PHASE 5: political discussions as part of Conference preparations. Having a clearer sense of the local development takes and challenges, and being acquainted with mass-based political work branch members will be in a better position to engage in debates on the discussion documents distributed in preparation for the ANC 3rd National General Council and the 53rd National Conference.

The Imvuselelo Campaign is not a once-off campaign. It will form the bass for an ongoing programme of membership development, organization building and community engagement.

The lesson learnt from the first campaign will be used to mould the annual programme of our branches.

At the center of our recruitment campaign, is the declaration of an oath by all individuals who seek membership of the ANC. In this declaration, members solemnly declare that they will abide by the aims and objectives of the ANC as set out in the Constitution, the Freedom Charter and other duly adopted policy positions.

The campaign is an integral part of the Centenary preparations and mobilisations of the ANC. It is aimed at ensuring that we have an organizing that knows and understand its hundred-year history, but also have the tools to deal with the challenges of today.

It is this combination of learning from the past, looking at ourselves today and planning for the future, which gives the ANC its vibrancy and its capacity for renewal.

Programme for the Launches of Imvuselelo Campaigns

Free State Cadres forum Bram Fischer Building Aditorium(Bloemfontein) 14/08/2010 13h00 – 17h00
Imvuselelo Launch Open Space next to ZCC(Bloemfontein) 15/08/2010 09h00 – 12h00
Northern Cape Imvuselelo Launch De Aar Community Hall 15/08/2010 09h00 – 12h00
Western Cape Imvuselelo Launch Franschoek Community Hall 15/08/2010 09h00 – 12h00
KwaZulu-Natal Imvuselelo Launch Shayamoya Open Space, ward 7 14/08/2010 09h00 – 14h00
North West Imvuselelo Launch Tswaing 14/08/2010 10h00 – 12h00

Issued by:
Jackson Mthembu
ANC National Spokesperson

Enquiries:
Ishmael Mnisi 0823335550