Opening the debate on the President's State of Nation Address in the National Assembly last week, the majority party's Chief Whip, Dr Mathole Motshekga, said:  "The Bill seeks to inculcate the values of rights and responsibilities among school children. In particular, the Bill focuses on the respect for human dignity and the work ethic. It is particularly important for building the character of children, deterring teenage pregnancies, use and or abuse of drugs and alcohol.

"We welcome the invitation of the President for partnership in the fight against substance abuse and teenage pregnancies," Dr Motshekga added.

Dr Motshekga said the partnership between Lead SA, the department and the National Interfaith Movement would be launched in March.

Volkwyn said the Preamble of the Bill of Responsibilities reads: "I accept the call to responsibility that comes with the many rights and freedoms that I have been privileged to inherit from the sacrifice and the suffering of those who come before me.

"I appreciate that the rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa are inseparable from the duties and responsibilities to others. Therefore I accept that with every right comes a set of responsibilities."

Amongst the aspects covered in the Bill of Responsibilities are issues such as "the right to education places on me the responsibility to attend school regularly, to learn and to work hard; cooperate respectfully with teachers and fellow learners and; adhere to rules and the code of conduct of the school."

Other issues covered include how to be a "good and loyal South African citizen - obeying the laws of our country, and contributing in every possible way to make South Africa a greater country."

Also covered in the Bill of Responsibilities are aspects such as: "The responsibility in ensuring the right to life, responsibility in ensuring the right to equality, the responsibility in ensuring the right to freedom or religion, belief and opinion; the responsibility in ensuring the right to freedom of expression; responsibility in ensuring the right to live in a safe environment and responsibility in ensuring the right to family and parental care."

Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Dr Warren Goldstein, who drafted the Bill of Responsibilities on behalf of the National Religious Forum (who has now merged with the National Interfaith Movement), said: "The future of South Africa will be determined by the impressionable young children who sit in our classrooms day after day. It is the values in the Bill of Responsibilities that will influence the way our children view the world and their own position within it.

"The Bill of Responsibilities offer our children the gift of new words and a new spirit - the words and spirit of giving and contributing, of duty, accountability and responsibility, of respect and decency, of tolerance and understanding, of integrity and loyalty, of kindness and compassion," Dr Goldstein said.

The National Interfaith Movement has been tasked with taking the messages from the Bill of Responsibilities to places of worship and to the various congregations. All religious groups are represented.

Tony Howard, CEO of Independent Newspapers welcomed Dr Motshekga's announcement.

Howard said: "Constitutional development in South Africa has had its own contradictions. The founding fathers and mothers of our new constitutional order in 1996 came up with one of the world's best constitutional documents and a fantastic Bill of Rights which South Africans are enthusiastically using to defend their individual rights.

"In contrast there has been a slide in the values related to the Bill of Rights. We have seen striking truck drivers use their right to strike but flagrantly ignoring, and using violence, to flout the rights of others to go about their lives in a peaceful manner.

"The Bill of Responsibilities is designed to inculcate and impress on our young people, their parents and all South Africans that the Bill of Rights has a flipside - every guaranteed right comes with a set of values we as citizens must preach, practice and live up to in our daily lives," said Howard.

Lead SA was launched in August last year as a partnership between Primedia Broadcasting and the Independent Group of Newspapers.

The idea is to create an active civic society. Some of the focus areas have included a call on the nation to volunteer during the nationwide strike by nurses, anti-rhino poaching awareness, supporting national sporting teams, getting behind the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, lighting Candles of Hope for the recovery of former president Nelson Mandela and assisting to improve the matric pass rate. 

"Lead SA wants you to stand up, do the right thing and make a difference. This social cohesion initiative has been very successful so far and with the Bill of Responsibilities, we will continue to spread the message and create a set of values that we all need to aspire to," Yusuf Abramjee, Primedia Broadcasting's Head of News and Current Affairs said.

He said President Jacob Zuma's call in the State of the Nation Address on Friday highlighting the drug and substance abuse problem was one area that also needed urgent attention. "The Bill of Responsibilities will help us."

Moegsien Williams, editor of the Star Newspaper, said: "We will constantly be driving the various messages, which are contained in the Bill of Responsibilities. We are also looking at making educational material available to drive the values to our teachers and our children.

"There is no doubt that with the launch of the Bill of Responsibilities, we are going to be taking South Africa forward. The reality is that violence, sex and other social ills is rampant amongst our children. The time has come to create a set of values and change our outlook on life," Williams added.