Breast cancer, according to research, is diagnosed in approximately one in every twenty-nine women in South Africa. Differences in gender, race and class produce disparities in health care, subjecting lower class women to lengthy waiting periods between diagnosis and treatment. Present research studies on breast cancer predominantly use quantitative methods. To understand women's lived experiences of the breast cancer trajectory this study explores experiences encountered during the waiting period, as well as the impacts of breast cancer and its treatment on feminine identity. For this a qualitative method was applied. Semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted with five black and coloured breast cancer patients residing at two of CANSA's care homes. Participants varied in age and phases of treatment, were all married or widowed, had minor dependants, and had all travelled from distant and outlying areas. Based on a thematic analysis, six themes emerged from the data collected. These included: First experiences of cancer in the body; breast cancer and waiting periods from the patient's perspective; sources of support; meanings and perceptions of being a woman; conceptualising disease, and patients' needs. The analysis illustrates the importance of researching women's lived experiences and highlights that these need to be understood within a framework of socially constructed notions of gender, race and class in order to improve breast cancer treatment and psycho-social care.

Background: Down Syndrome (DS) is a chromosomal defect known to cause intellectual disability. Adolescents with DS may need to live with their families beyond the transition period into adulthood because they require lifelong care due to the disabling consequences of the genetic condition. Evidence is lacking about the actions that carers in remote rural communities are taking to enhance the rights of their adolescents with DS as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Aim: To describe the advocacy and activism actions of carers that promote the disability rights of adolescents with DS. Objectives: To describe carers’ understanding of 'activism’ in relation to the needs of adolescents with DS; to explore what actions carers are engaging with in order to promote participation and equal opportunities for social inclusion of adolescents with DS; to describe barriers encountered and strategies used and to describe carers’ advocacy priority list for social inclusion of adolescents with DS. Methodology: A descriptive qualitative approach was used where three carers told their stories of activism and advocacy actions through a semi-structured in-depth interview method. Their stories were audio-recorded, transcribed into textual form and an inductive data analysis followed a framework approach guided by the research aims. Findings: One overriding theme Puuyelele (bringing adolescents with DS into the open) emerged with four categories: namely, “Speaking for and acting on behalf of adolescents with DS”, “Enabling a continuous enlightening process”, “Ensuring ongoing care and services” and “Raising public awareness on human rights of adolescents with DS”. Discussion: Three concepts about DS advocacy and activism for adolescents with DS formed the discussion; first, it is a strategic process requiring togetherness, courage and perseverance; second, it proceeds from vigilant care-giving and service provision and, lastly, it requires rising of human rights awareness. Conclusion: A strategic and contextualised DS advocacy and activism process such as Puuyelele requires human rights awareness and emerges from vigilant care that enhances community participation and social inclusion of adolescents with DS. The process creates a possible and realistic conceptual framework for further strengthening of disability-inclusive development initiatives in Namibia.

The main topic of the thesis is actors and their role in the policy change process in the transport policy of the Czech Republic. It is argued that current transport system is not sustainable and the main goal of every transport policy should be sustainable transport. There exist, however, many barriers in achieving more sustainable transport system. Institutional barriers including formal organisations as well as norms and rules and actors seem to be one of the most significant. These actors can influence and change policy. One of the theories explaining how actors can change policy is the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The ACF suggests that actors form their policy proposals and solutions according to their belief system and create advocacy coalitions in order to pursue their goals and interests. A policy changes when a dominant coalition has been replaced by so far minor coalition representing policy alternatives or when a dominant coalition members change their attitudes towards, or a perception of, a given policy problem (e.g. local transport). Therefore, the main aim of the thesis is to find out how selected actors perceive problems of the transport policy in the Czech Republic and to identify potential advocacy coalitions through analysis of their attitudes. One of the objectives is...

This thesis explores the way we learn to advocate for sexual assault survivors. This multi-methodological, qualitative study examines both popular cultural representations of sexual assault and official training materials provided by rape crisis centers and domestic violence organizations as sites of pedagogical messaging. I argue that it is imperative to incorporate intersectional feminist frameworks into understanding how advocacy is animated in these different sites of learning. This project offers an intersectional feminist analysis of two television shows: Netflix's Unbelievable and HBO's I May Destroy You, in addition to the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA) training manual and supplemental training materials from six different rape crisis centers within a 75-mile radius of the Dallas Ft. Worth metroplex. Together, both sets of texts work pedagogically to teach us who is a worthy victim, what counts as "real" rape (and to challenge this very framework), and who deserves organizational resources. This thesis concludes by offering an Intersectional Rape Advocacy Toolkit, aimed at offering a set of values, lessons, and practices necessary for activists to grow in mutual advocacy for survivors and mutual support for fellow activists working to put an end to rape culture.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to collaborate with a community partner to administer a current needs assessment of persons with epilepsy (PWE) and determine the types of resources that PWE would like to access through the community partner. Methods: A self-report needs assessment survey was administered to caregivers and PWE across the state of South Carolina during a community partner educational workshop (n= 20) and via secure software distributed through an email link (n= 54). Key findings: The most frequently reported challenges (>. 50%) were concerns about finding time to participate in epilepsy community activities, the personal safety of the PWE, finding social connections or social support, finding mental or behavioral health services, and work concerns. However, top ranked concerns centered on personal safety (27.8%), lack of insurance/not enough money to pay for epilepsy treatment (15.3%), and difficulty with daily management of epilepsy (13.9%). Participants reported likely engagement with the epilepsy community partner via in-person meetings, over the phone, and through social media contacts; however, there were differences between PWE and caregivers regarding preferences for communication. Almost 60% endorsed that they would likely participate in a brief program to learn skills to manage their epilepsy daily. Significance: Persons with epilepsy in South Carolina continue to have many unmet needs and would access resources, if available, from a state-wide epilepsy community partner via various modes of communication.

Based on the growing importance of community engagement and the recognition of its importance by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the committee offers several examples of community engagement activities for consideration and replication by our academy and beyond. These activities, including those of winning institutions of the Lawrence J. Weaver Transformational Community Engagement Award, can be mapped to the core components of community engagement presented in Table 1. The committee, using an implementation readiness framework, provides the reader with insight into the challenges that may impact successful community engagement and encourages our academy to continue its work to support faculty capacity in this area. Toward that end, the committee offers a policy statement that encourages schools and colleges of pharmacy to have an office or designate a faculty member whose focus is specifically on community engagement. The committee also offers a recommendation that the core components be included in the criteria for the Weaver Award.

Excerpt: The recent study by Floden, Lennerling, Fridh, Rizell and Forsberg [1] concluded that using the Attitude Towards Organ Donor Advocacy Scale (ATODAS) is ready for use in future research studies because it has good psychometric properties for measuring ICU nurses’ attitudes towards advocacy on behalf of potential and actual organ donors. However, that conclusion is not supported by the data in the study because of lack of evidence of measurement validity

The culture within an organisation affects organisational performance in a myriad of ways, but the existing research was found by this paper to only examine organisational culture’s effect on profitability. This narrow view creates a gap between culture as a starting point for performance, and profitability as an ultimate endpoint. What about everything in between that culture has an effect on? Rather than examining organisational culture in terms of how it influences profitability, this study looks at how organisational culture influences an aspect organisational performance, specifically: its effect on brand image or on word-of-mouth referral. To do so, this paper unpacks a causal chain of influences in four chapters. The research here shows how that employees situated within the culture influences customers to promise to refer the organisation to their social connections. The literature shows that organisational culture is a context that influences most facets of business, and this context is used as a filter by employees to understand how they should behave and what they should value. This paper proposes that employees receive internal brand communications within the context of the culture. Then, they conduct their service actions according to what is expected of them within this context. Customers who interact with these employees are then coming into contact with the organisational by the proxy of customer-facing employees. These interactions between customers and employees are what causes the customer to enjoy the service experience or not. The theory shows that when a service experience is enjoyed, there is likelihood of positive word-of-mouth referral. This paper correlates that and proposes that when there is a strong degree of alignment in organisational culture, employees receive internal brand communications and conduct their service actions in strong alignment of what is expected of them. This leads to customers perceiving the organisation in a way that is favourable and causes a significant number of customers to promise to recommend the organisation.

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ABSTRACT From the 18th century, a considerable element of legislative democracy has been that of national budgeting. This has been substantially critical in assuring legislative statute over the government which has been controlled by kings. Predictably, the notion of public participation in budgetary processes has been disparate by governments in Africa. Due to its technocratic and elitist design, it is mostly a complex issue to recognise the making of national budgets by ordinary citizens in South Africa. However, topical developments have shown that the processes of creating national budgets should consider civil society’s role particularly in evaluating the impact of budgets on the poor. It is against this technocratic and elitist architectural backdrop of the state, regarding public budgeting and implementation, which this study employs the People’s Budget Campaign as a unique civil society organisation advocating for an alternative budget process in South Africa. This research has used a qualitative method in analysing data collected from primary and secondary sources, semi-structured interviews, as well as direct and participant observation of PBC activities.