Working for Safety: The Community Work Programme as a Tool for Preventing Violence and Building Safer Communities
- Posted on
- In Policy, Publications
- by CSVR
The Community Work Programme (CWP) provides two days of work per week (up to 100 days per year) to unemployed and underemployed people. During the year April 2014 to March 2015 there were 202 599 participants in the CWP at 186 CWP sites across South Africa. The primary purpose of the CWP is to provide an employment safety net. By working in the CWP people who are poor can obtain a basic stable income. But the CWP also makes a big difference to life in the communities in which it is situated. Through the work that it does it contributes to community development. The work that participants in the CWP do is supposed to be 'useful work'. This is work that 'contributes to the public good, community goods or social services'. CWP participants do many different types of work. These include things like care work, support work at schools, early childhood development (ECD), and looking after the local environment by cleaning, clearing drains, and planting trees. This Policy Brief looks in more detail at questions about how the CWP can prevent violence and crime, thereby making communities safer.
CWP-Policy-Brief-2
CSVR is a multi-disciplinary institute that seeks to understand and prevent violence, heal its effects and build sustainable peace at the community, national and regional levels.
