Abstract
The research seeks to address the experiences of the community development workers working with gender-based violence (GBV) programmes. Research into the experiences of community development working with GBV has not been brought under academic examination. The study aims to examine the experiences of community development workers working with GBV programmes from the Govan Mbeki Municipality. A qualitative approach is adopted in the study, which helps the researcher to get insights on the experiences of the community development workers from their own point of view. Moreover, the study uses a descriptive research design. The descriptive design aligns the researcher’s focus on the research subjects which are community development workers working with GBV programmes and their experiences instead of just focusing on their behaviour. The research findings showed that various initiatives are carried out by community development workers in community level to address gender-based violence. The findings show that the initiatives are very effective within communities as they empower the community members in various ways. However, there are also many challenges faced by community development workers when carrying out GBV initiatives within communities. The challenges include challenges in reporting GBV in communities, psychological challenges for community development workers, lack of participation and involvement of the community members, irrelevant qualifications to practice community development. In order to address the challenges and improve the experiences of community development workers working with gender-based violence the study also provides recommendations such as providing proper training for community development workers and restriction measures to prevent untrained community development workers from practicing, provide community development workers with psychological assistance, changes in the law enforcement institutions and community education.