100-day-challenge

Through its Ending GBVF 100-Day Challenge, the Free State Department of Sport, Arts and Culture is exploring how libraries can become community spaces where people access information about gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).

On 9 August 1956, 20 000 women climbed the steps of the Union Buildings carrying more than 100 000 signatures. They had travelled from cities, towns, reserves and villages, and they arrived in groups of twos and threes because large gatherings were banned. Seventy years later, the demand they made has changed shape rather than been met.

Forty-four sexual offence cases at Seshego Regional Court had been sitting on the roll for more than two years. Every one of those files represents a survivor waiting for an outcome, with the case remaining open across two full calendar years and, in many instances, longer.

Polokwane Regional Court carries pressure on two separate rolls. On 25 May 2026 the divorce backlog stood at 3,445 matters. On the sexual offences roll, 72 cases sat in backlog, each one holding a survivor in the system while the matter moves between the state case, defence, judgment and sentencing.

Fifty widows and widowers. That is the number the Rand West City Local Municipality team set for Grief Nest, one of two 100-Day Challenges the municipality launched after its Start-up Workshop on 16 July 2026

The Mafikeng team is working with the North West Department of Basic Education to strengthen reporting systems in 10 schools during the 100-Day Challenge. The goal responds to concerns about learner pregnancies linked to statutory rape, as well as other forms of abuse that are not consistently reported because educators are uncertain about the correct procedures.

A defining feature of the 100-Day Challenge is that teams are encouraged to narrow their focus. Lasting progress is difficult when resources and attention are spread too widely. Instead, teams identify one area where concentrated effort can produce measurable results within 100 days.

For Dr Beyers Naudé Municipality, that focus is young people.

How do we measure a strong referral pathway? A referral pathway can be measured through the experience of the people seeking support. The relevant organisation needs to be able to connect the survivor, family or child with the appropriate support. Each of these steps play an important part in whether someone receives the help they need.

What happens when a student is experiencing gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) but does not know how to name what is happening to them? This question is informing the Majuba TVET’s Ending GBVF 100-Day Challenge. All six campuses launched on 08 June 2026. Each campus has its own team and its own SMURF goal centred around increasing the reporting of cases. The combined SMURF goal for all campuses is to achieve a reporting target of 300 cases in 100 days.

More than 360 Ending GBVF 100-Day Challenges have been completed across South Africa since 2021, and young people sit at the centre of many of them. This Youth Month, teams in colleges, municipalities and courts are showing what becomes possible when young people help shape the response to gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF), rather than being treated only as those it harms.