Training of Community Development Workers Program

About this grant

Despite recent progress in South Africa, most rural and marginalized communities still have no access to basic services and experience high levels of poverty, underdevelopment and unemployment. In response to these challenges, the government developed the community development worker (CDW) program. CDWs are drawn from the communities and provided with basic training to work with local government structures to bridge the gap between the communities and local government.Multiyear funding will enable the National Rural Community Development Education Programme (NARDEP) to provide training and capacity building to 56 CDWs and four mentors (supervisors) in two local municipalities in the Limpopo province. Objectives will include developing relevant and demand-driven training materials that meet the needs of the target communities; training CDWs and ensuring that indigenous knowledge is integrated into the training programs; facilitating the orientation of CDWs into the respective communities; facilitating community access to local authorities; and providing training and mentoring to local economic development initiatives by CDWs.NARDEP trains and places CDWs in communities to ensure that they receive basic services from local authorities.