The safest province for women in South Africa in Limpopo. The least safe province is our very own Western Cape. 1st for Women conducted a survey and the results reveal that because they are constantly worried about their safety, 30% of people are considering emigration.
The head of 1st For Women Insurance, Seugnette van Wyngaard says that the Western Cape has come bottom of the safety index as it had the highest number of reported incidents per 100 000 people for community-reported serious crimes, property-related crimes and theft of, or from, a motor vehicle.
Statistics SA reveals that data revealed that the Western Cape had the highest number of reported murder cases affecting children, accounting for 23.8%, followed closely by KwaZulu-Natal at 20.7% and Gauteng at 17.8%.
Science journalist, Helen Pearson says that for the last 70 years, scientists in Britain have been following thousands of children through their lives as part of an incredible scientific study. They collect information on thousands of children and then they can compare their circumstances. Pearson says that the study started in 1946 and sheds some light on these issues.
Don't be born into a poor family or into a struggling family. Now, I'm sure you can see the small problem here. We can't choose our parents or how much they earn, but this British study has also struck a real note of optimism by showing that not everyone who has a disadvantaged start ends up in difficult circumstances. As you know, many people have a tough start in life, but they end up doing very well on some measure nevertheless, and this study starts to explain how. So the second lesson is this: parents really matter. In this study, children who had engaged, interested parents, ones who had ambition for their future, were more likely to escape from a difficult start. It seems that parents and what they do are really, really important, especially in the first few years of life. Let me give you an example of that. In one study, scientists looked at about 17,000 children who were born in 1970. They sifted all the mountains of data that they had collected to try to work out what allowed the children who'd had a difficult start in life to go on and do well at school nevertheless. In other words, which ones beat the odds. The data showed that what mattered more than anything else was parents. Having engaged, interested parents in those first few years of life was strongly linked to children going on to do well at school later on. In fact, quite small things that parents do are associated with good outcomes for children. Talking and listening to a child, responding to them warmly, teaching them their letters and numbers, taking them on trips and visits. Reading to children every day seems to be really important, too. So in one study, children whose parents were reading to them daily when they were five and then showing an interest in their education at the age of 10, were significantly less likely to be in poverty at the age of 30 than those whose parents weren't doing those things. Now, there are huge challenges with interpreting this type of science. These studies show that certain things that parents do are correlated with good outcomes for children, but we don't necessarily know those behaviors caused the good outcomes, or whether some other factor is getting in the way. For example, we have to take genes into account, and that's a whole other talk in itself. But scientists working with this British study are working really hard to get at causes, and this is one study I particularly love. In this one, they looked at the bedtime routines of about 10,000 children born at the turn of the millennium. Were the children going to bed at regular times, or did they go to bed at different times during the week? The data showed that those children who were going to bed at different times were more likely to have behavioral problems, and then those that switched to having regular bedtimes often showed an improvement in behavior, and that was really crucial, because it suggested it was the bedtime routines that were really helping things get better for those kids. Here's another one to think about. In this one, scientists looked at children who were reading for pleasure. That means that they picked up a magazine, a picture book, a story book. The data showed that children who were reading for pleasure at the ages of five and 10 were more likely to go on in school better, on average, on school tests later in their lives. And not just tests of reading, but tests of spelling and maths as well. This study tried to control for all the confounding factors, so it looked at children who were equally intelligent and from the same social-class background, so it seemed as if it was the reading which really helped those children go on and score better on those school tests later in their lives. Now at the start, I said the first lesson from this study was not to be born into poverty or into disadvantage, because those children tend to follow more difficult paths in their lives. But then I said that parenting matters, and that good parenting, if you can call it that, helps children beat the odds and overcome some of those early disadvantages. So wait, does that actually mean, then, that poverty doesn't matter after all? You could argue it doesn't matter if a child is born poor -- as long as their parents are good parents, they're going to do just fine. I don't believe that's true. This study shows that poverty and parenting matter. And one study actually put figures on that, so it looked at children growing up in persistent poverty and how well they were doing at school. The data showed that even when their parents were doing everything right -- putting them to bed on time and reading to them every day and everything else -- that only got those children so far. Good parenting only reduced the educational gap between the rich and poor children by about 50 percent. Now that means that poverty leaves a really lasting scar, and it means that if we really want to ensure the success and well-being of the next generation, then tackling child poverty is an incredibly important thing to do.
South African International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor is taking a strong stance on the Israel – Palestine war and said in a speech last week that South Africans who have served in the IDF (Israel Defence Force) could be arrested when returning to the country. She says that she has already issued a statement alerting those who are South African and who are fighting alongside or in the IDF that they are ready when they come home; they are going to arrest them.
Pandor says that no people should be denied rights, no people should be sanctioned for no reason and no people should suffer because of their ideology. They do you no harm but you deny them access to goods. This cannot be tolerated and when we see injustice, as South Africans committed to justice to human dignity, to equality, all values you prize because they are in your constitution. She says that these values do don't only apply to them, they apply to all humanity. This is an issue of justice.
Go and watch information from a popular TikTokker called the Arabian Girl, account name: boredbedouin in a clip describing what is going on, on the ground in Gaza.
