Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-126). / This paper examines how the cultural landscape of the Botha Bothe Plateau can contribute towards improving the lives of people in the area, through the management of its heritage resources. The main objectives of the study are: (a) to examine the way the Botha Bothe Plateau has been managed as a cultural landscape in order to evaluate how much the local communities are benefiting from this important Lesotho heritage site. (b) To investigate the potential of a well-managed Botha Bothe Plateau for contribute to improving living conditions. The study takes the view that with proper management system in place, the plateau will be able to retain its cultural heritage values and provide meaningful benefits to the local community.

This study explores the varied ways sexual minority organisations in Kenya negotiate their choices, decisions and actions when determining how, when, and why to be publicly visible or retreat from visibility. This they have to do in the context of the threats of retribution on the part of Kenyan state leaders to their efforts to protect sexual minority rights. Sexual minority organising carries the risk of verbal abuse and the threat of arrest and other retribution. In spite of this, sexual minorities have organised themselves into publicly visible social movement organisations over the last ten years. In addition to the hostility of the Kenyan state, these organisations operate within the context of the uneven situation with regard to the constraints or otherwise of organising as sexual minorities between the Global South and North. The situation is further complicated by the role of donors, who bring their own experiences and agendas from the Global North, not always appropriately, into African contexts. Amid such varied responses to sexual minority organising, how, when, and why do Kenyan social movement organizations become publicly visible or retreat from visibility? To recognise the various forces that influence (in)visibility choices that sexual minority organisations have to negotiate, I used sociologist James M. Jasper's (2006) concept of "strategic dilemma". Sexual minority social movement organisations field strategic dilemmas when they strategise around whether and how to become visible, modify their public profile, or forgo political opportunities. To understand the micro-political dynamics of how sexual minority social movement organisations negotiated such strategic dilemmas of visibility and invisibility, I analysed 200 newspaper articles and sexual minority organisational documents and conducted 12 in-depth interviews with staff, members and leaders of sexual minority social movement organisations. Ultimately the findings of this thesis centre on the fluidity of visibility and invisibility as was experienced by Kenyan sexual minority organisations. (ln)visibility was experienced in diverse ways as a process that included a series of steps that do not have absolute values nor are they necessarily coherent in different time and space. My findings advance social movement theorizing by demonstrating the importance of studying social movements in the global South. In addition, my findings contribute to postcolonial feminist and queer theorizing by showing how marginalised sexual and gender minorities in Kenya struggled strategically to assert their democratic inclusion in the state.

No description available.

No description available.

Female genital cutting is often depicted in media spheres through numerical statistics and one to two-lined captions that do not effectively capture the full humanity of the Black girls and women they are describing. The numerical statistics and pictorial captions provide myopic and ahistorical interpretations of African people and paint Africa as a homogenous continent riddled by its own barbarity. Through an Afrocentric analysis of the practice of female genital cutting, Tanzania people and people throughout the African diaspora can be imagined through a Sankofa return to their Maatic and ubuntu humanity. The Maatic and ubuntu lens opens the radical possibility to understand that Black girls and women do not need to be circumcised to reach the fullest potential of their humanity. Using the Afronographic methodology, rooted in the Afrocentric metatheory, I analyzed how young Black women can become rhetorically lost in translation through nongovernmental organization (NGO) rhetoric, an extension of the fieldwork I did at the Network Against Female Genital Mutilation (NAFGEM) in 2019. Additionally, I deconstructed NAFGEM’s refusal to allow me to conduct interviews in 2022 unless their NGO personnel were present. The refusal revealed how NGOs become discursive embodiments of Eurocentricity invested in maintaining victimizing narratives based on the debasement of African humanity. Therefore, an Afrocentric metatheoretical analysis proliferates Eurocentric algorithms by centering the Kemetic humanizing principles of Ma’at and ubuntu to prioritize the word magic (nommo) of Black women and girls. / Africology and African American Studies

<p> This hermeneutic phenomenological study sought to investigate the nature of graduate experience of Kenyan international students in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. International students seek high education in the United States for various reasons including; access to quality education, research infrastructure, employment, prestige, and exposure. A review of literature showed that Kenyan students while appreciative of the opportunity to study in the US face challenges not limited to; cultural conflicts, discrimination, emotional stress, and financial difficulties. A purposeful sample was employed to collected data from 21 participants using interviews and focus groups. </p><p> From the data analysis five themes emerged, namely; (a) Positive educational experience reinforced by enabling environment, (b) Graduate experience enhanced by favorable opportunities, (c) Hardships and struggles impede graduate experience, (d) Strong social relationships foster academic performance, and (e) Nurturing resiliency and discipline for educational success. The findings suggested that despite the many challenges, availability of strong supportive relationships and abundance of university resources significantly influence the transformative graduate experience for Kenyan students in the United States. Moreover, the findings raised awareness and demonstrated the need for stakeholders such as: educators, faculty members, counselors, recruiters, and university administrators to address the unique needs of Kenyan students, and other subgroups of international students, in the U.S. higher education system.</p>

<p> Despite the ongoing investments in programs to increase sexual health awareness among young adults globally, many youths remain vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Two-thirds of all STDs occur among youths engaging in high-risk sexual behaviors, which put young adults at higher risk of STDs and can result in serious consequences including infertility. Additionally, the social consequences of STD affect families and communities. While a need exists for increased public awareness of STDs among young adults, extant intervention and prevention activities should be informed by a cultural perspective, including the integration of community and government roles. The purpose of this social ecological study was to investigate the perceptions of STDs and the potential factors responsible for the increased frequency of STDs based on the lived experiences of 20 young adults with STDs in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Through a qualitative approach using a phenomenological research design, this study employed semi-structured interviews, and the resultant data were analyzed and coded. The findings indicated that college-aged students increasingly engaged in sexually risky behavior with multiple sexual partners for financial gain and power. Additionally, while institutions promoted abstinence as an effective strategy to reduce STD infections, the findings indicated a strong relationship between the phenomenon and individual interconnectedness with the larger society. Because the sexual behavior of young adults in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, is influenced at multiple ecological levels, effective and sustaining culturally appropriate STD interventions must involve the larger society including young adults in all stages of intervention development and implementation.</p>

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are now key players in international development, but their activities have also been facing a large volume of criticism since around the turn of the century. The role of Northern NGOs in development assistance has been of particular concern due to a range of aspects of their work. Critical in the debates about NGOs are issues of legitimacy and of imposing outsiders’ views and priorities on their host communities through their development assistance. In such scepticism about Northern NGOs, there has been a shift to the current focus of large scale international NGOs’ activities which is now more on advocacy and emergency relief activities; more development assistance has been handed directly to local grassroots organisations or to partner organisations of international NGOs. The small scale Northern NGOs, which comprise the majority, have been in danger in the international arena. Since the 1990s, Japan has also witnessed the surge of NGOs working in international cooperation. The new type of NGOs, whose activities are inspired not by anti-government movements but by international development, grew rapidly with increased governmental assistance. These Japanese NGOs are, however, often small scale and mostly engaged in development assistance, unlike their counterparts in Western countries. The purpose of this study is to explore the activities, lifestyle, and development thinking of a single Japanese NGO in order to deepen our understanding of Japan’s international cooperation conducted by citizens from a wide range of aspects and to verify whether and how the Japanese philosophy of self-help efforts is put into practice in Kenya. Chapter 2 presents the methodology which is employed in the study. Chapter 3 looks at the origin and international trends of NGOs working in development through the relevant literature. The main focus is not put on an examination of NGOs’ national roles, rather it is placed on the transition of their role and relationship with states in general development issues. Chapter 4 examines community participation in development in the local Kenyan context. The chapter provides insights into the role of self-help and the way local self-help efforts have been directed by the national and local politics for development in Kenya. Chapter 5 looks at Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) in order to explore the conceptual and historical context of Japan’s international cooperation, as this has a considerable influence over Japanese NGOs. The chapter provides insights into the philosophy of self-help efforts in Japan’s ODA as well as on the influence of Japanese policy over the activities of Japanese NGOs. Chapter 6 investigates the systems and mechanisms of NGOs in Japan, including the origin and history of Japanese NGOs, the scale and scope of their activities, their funding system, and their relationships with their donors and amongst themselves, in addition to the interaction between the government and Japanese NGOs. Chapters 7 and 8 are the main body of this study and provide in-depth research on a Japanese NGO in Kenya: Community Action Development Organisation (CanDo). Although it is small when compared with International NGOs, CanDo has been drawing substantial attention in the Japanese international development community in these five years. The main purpose of these chapters is not to evaluate whether the activities of CanDo are effective or not, but rather to explore its philosophy of facilitating local self-help efforts and how the philosophy is put into practice in its activities in poor communities in Mwingi District, Kenya. Its philosophy is analysed through describing in detail its organisational characteristics, development thinking, and its relationships with the local authority and local community. The final chapter explores the implications of CanDo’s philosophy and practice in understanding Japanese international cooperation in Africa as well as the role of small international NGOs working on development activities with local communities.

<p> This dissertation examines how West Indians utilized the conception of black internationalism&mdash;the idea that blacks across the world were part larger global community regardless of country of origin&mdash;to inform and give meaning to their struggles in Panama. West Indians were active participants in Marcus Garvey's international Pan-African organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and joined it in droves. Through participation in the UNIA and a strong belief in Garveyism, West Indians started schools and opened businesses to support the community, all the while envisioning themselves as part of a worldwide community of blacks. The dissertation also discusses how in the 1930s and 1940s black internationalism lost sway among West Indians due to shifting social and political contexts. As second generation West Indians&mdash;those born in Panama&mdash;came of age, they no longer embraced black internationalism. Second generation West Indians (or criollos) sought to integrate into Panamanian society by embracing Spanish and participating in national politics. The main tenets of black internationalism failed to resonant among criollos, who had a more internal and national focus than their parents. Still, race played a large role in criollo efforts to become part of Panamanian society. Criollos embraced their racial heritage and fought for consideration as both Panamanian and black. </p><p> This dissertation also offers the most in-depth look at the West Indian community in Panama to date, and foregrounds their history within the overall history of Panama. West Indians had a major influence on Panamanian history, most notably during the 1930s and 1940s when racist, anti-West Indian political parties and politicians rose to prominence. These politicians, most prominently Arnulfo Arias, pledged to expel West Indians from Panama. This dissertation offers a thorough overview of Panamanian history from 1920 to the 1940s, but it does so using the experience of West Indians as the jumping off point. </p>

<p> This study examined the effectiveness of the Fadama III, National Program for Food Security and International Fund for Agricultural Development programs in reducing poverty and income inequality in Yobe State, Nigeria. Agricultural funding in the state has increased by 670.7% between 2004 and 2013. Despite this trajectory, the state ranks among the worst in Nigeria in terms of poverty and income inequality according to UNDP report, reinforcing the need to investigate the impact of agricultural funding on the state&rsquo;s welfare. Previous studies in this area have been on a country-wide basis and have not disaggregated the funding sources. This study disaggregating the funding sources of Yobe State in order to establish the effectiveness of each funding source. Field survey data from the fund beneficiaries and secondary data from the Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics, and the World Bank provided empirical evidence. The first-best resource allocation theoretical framework was applied to understand the impact of funding sources on the welfare effect of the beneficiaries. The Ordinary Least Square, analysis of variance, and <i> t</i> test revealed that agricultural funding significantly and positively impacts on recipients&rsquo; standard of living, asset base, and agricultural output, without any significant impact on income. Results indicate that FADAMA III is the most effective in improving the overall welfare of beneficiaries. It is recommended that other funding programs should adopt the models of FADAMA III, and should also require counterpart funding in order to maximize the benefit for a larger segment of the population. These findings may bring positive social change by reducing poverty, expanding economic opportunities, and improving quality of life, leading ultimately to sustainable peace and economic prosperity in Yobe State.</p>