Khulisa Social Solutions, in partnership with FAMSA and Mamadi Advice Centre, is leading a groundbreaking community-led initiative to tackle gender-based violence (GBV) through structured dialogue circles and social cohesion strategies. As part of the EmpowerAbility Programme, funded by the Ponahalo De Beers Trust, these engagements produce tangible, solution-focused outcomes in the municipalities of Vhembe and Blouberg.

The past week alone, over 220 individuals—including youth, women, persons with disabilities, GBV survivors, municipal representatives, ward councillors, educators, traditional leaders, and community-based organisations—have participated in these facilitated sessions. At the heart of this initiative is the belief that those most affected by systemic violence are best positioned to lead the solutions.

The EmpowerAbility Programme is designed to reach and uplift the most vulnerable and underserved populations, including youth who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs), survivors of gender-based violence, persons with disabilities, caregivers and community workers, and emerging grassroots organisations in need of support for compliance, governance, and sustainability.

These trauma-informed dialogue circles and social cohesion workshops have revealed the root causes of GBV, which include substance abuse, youth unemployment, family disintegration, and governance failures. More importantly, they have inspired community-authored solutions that are already being implemented:

• Reactivating substance abuse centres and school-based prevention programs.
• Deploying mobile psychosocial units with social workers, legal advisors, and peer counsellors.
• Transforming dormant infrastructure into youth training hubs focused on agriculture and entrepreneurship.
• Collaborating with Home Affairs to run documentation campaigns in underserved villages.
• Training male leaders and traditional authorities as gender justice champions.
• Establishing community accountability forums to track and improve government service delivery.

To ensure these solutions are not lost in the cycle of short-term interventions, Khulisa is also working towards developing localised social contracts—agreements co-signed by community stakeholders and government representatives that clearly outline responsibilities, timelines, and accountability mechanisms. These compacts hold duty-bearers accountable, strengthening trust and collaboration between communities and state institutions. This approach draws on lessons from Khulisa’s social compacting model, where community-driven governance platforms are utilised to realign state commitments with citizen needs.

These solutions reflect the deep resilience and insight of communities burdened by systemic exclusion. Khulisa’s role is to facilitate, document, and amplify these voices, turning local wisdom into long-term social cohesion frameworks.

Complementing these efforts is a robust CBO Capacity-Building Programme that equips five community-based organisations in each municipality with governance training, support for funding readiness, digital tools, and M&E skills to ensure they remain compliant, credible, and deeply rooted in the community.

“We are not prescribing change—we are walking alongside communities as they shape it themselves,” says Lesley Ann van Selm, Managing Director of Khulisa. “This process is uncovering not only the wounds but also the collective will to heal and build.”

Although the programme is still in its early stages, it is already generating critical, real-time data to inform the design of a scalable, replicable social cohesion model.

Ultimately, we aim to reach every village throughout the Blouberg and Musina catchment areas, ensuring no community is excluded from this transformative process of healing, inclusion, and empowerment.