Thesis (M Social Work (Social Work))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / The welfare of communities depends to a large extent on the successful mobilisation of the voluntary contributions (manpower, time, money) by religious based organisations. Poverty and all the other social problems like unemployment and HIV/AIDS, that are associated with it, can only be addressed effectively if volunteers are empowered by social workers to handle the problems in a sustaining way (Annual report, Unit for Religion Development Research: 2002). In order to empower the volunteers, it is important that social workers understand their role in the empowerment process. The aim of the study is to clarify the task of the social worker regarding the empowerment of volunteers at religious based organisations. This study is a descriptive study, seeing that the empowerment of volunteers are described at the end of the research (Mouton, 2001:54). The study also contains elements of an exploring (investigation) study, seeing that the situation has been explored in practice. After completion of a literate study, an empirical investigation was done with the aim to investigate principles of empowerment in practice. For the purpose of this study, the universe is regarded as the social workers who work at religious based organisations in the working area of the Valcare Trust. Deliberate selection, according to the non-probability test sampling as described by Babbie and Mouton (2001:166-168) was used to obtain the test sample. The type of test sample selection is applicable where the researcher is conversant with the research problem and the universe (Rubin and Babbie, 1993). Deliberate selection is therefore based on the researcher’s judgement and the aim of the study (Rubin and Babbie, 1993). The researcher is well conversant with the universe, seeing that the social workers are working at religious based organisations that are registered on the database of the Valcare Trust. Questionnaires, consisting of structured questions were compiled after completion of the literate study for the purpose of the empirical study. The self administered questionnaires were supplied to the respondents. Thirteen respondents took part in the empirical study.