Extend the Child Support Grant to Age 18 The Alliance is an NGO made up of more than 1500 organizations, amongst which we can mention individuals and organizations such as Soul City, Molo Songololo, Madam Graca Machel, (TAC) Treatment Action Campaign, Children's Institute at UCT & Mike Samson to mention but a few.

All of these people have one thing in common i.e. the protection of the rights of the child ACESS’s aim is to advocate, through the collective strength and voices of its members, that social security policy and the ensuing legal framework is responsive and comprehensive, and is accessible to all poor children so that they may survive and develop to their full potential.

The current poverty alleviation programme for children is fundamentally flawed in that it is not comprehensive. Parents have to choose every month whether to use the cash to feed the family, or to spend it on other essential service such as education, health care or water and electricity. For the caregivers of poor children older than 14, the choices are even more limited.

They do not even have the benefit of such a choice as they have no recourse to social assistance in the way of cash grants. What we are advocating for is to extend the child support to age 18, free and quality education, nutrition, health care - basically a totally comprehensive social assistance package for children as guaranteed by the Constitution.

ACESS’s Projects Building and consolidating the alliance Promoting a comprehensive approach to social security Widening the reach of social assistance Addressing service delivery barriers to social assistance Promoting access to education