Kenneson (1999:242-245) tells the Japanese story of an old barren, aged and wardamaged cherry tree and an old man who attempts to nurse it back to life. One day two children stumble upon him. They were puzzled by his devotion to a tree that already appears to be dead. They inquired about this and he explained that he realizes that she hasn’t blossomed since before the war but one day, with a little kindness and patience, she may again. The children were inspired by the old man’s devotion and hope and agreed to join him in his efforts to nurse the tree back to life. They worked hard, but much of their time they spend waiting and hoping. And then one day a single pink petal appeared, followed by a rapturous display of fruit-producing blossoms. The Church can be compared to this dying tree that needs to be nurtured back to life. We are called to devote our lives to nurturing this tree called the church even when she seems dead and even when we have no guarantees that we will see a bountiful harvest of the Spirit’s fruit, in our lifetime. We may or may not see the church bear abundant fruit in our generation. But we must not give up hope that God will do what God has promised to do. What is also important is that we will inspire children and youth by our example and that they will be willing to continue to nurture this “tree”, no matter how hard the work to be done or how much waiting and hoping they have to put in. Unfortunately our catechism does not always provide them with all the “tools” they need to nurture the “tree” back to life. This study is about finding new ways. I looked into sport programmes, especially Ubabalo to see how their program works and what they do to keep the youth captivated and committed. I used the practical theologian RR Osmer’s model to guide me through this study. He works with the four tasks of Practical Theology and suggests four questions to guide a researcher. The questions are: <ul> <li>What is going on?</li> </ul> Gathering information that helps us discern patterns and dynamics in particular episodes, situations, or contexts is the descriptive-empirical task of practical theological interpretation. Here we look at sport programmes and three patterns and categories from the Catechumenate that Kreider (1999:xv-xvi) identified. They are belief, behavior and belonging. To this I added values. <ul> <li>Why is this going on?</li> </ul> Here we try to make sense of what we’ve found. What theories might help us to better understand and explain the patterns and dynamics we’ve begun to discover? These are the key questions of the interpretive task of practical theological interpretation. Here I’ve used theories from the arts and sciences to better understand and explain why this is going on. <ul> <li>What ought to be going on?</li> </ul> This is the normative task of practical theological interpretation. Here theological concepts are used to interpret particular episodes, situations, contexts and in this study, the patterns and categories identified. The aim of this task is to construct ethical norms to guide our responses, and to learn from “good practice”. <ul> <li>How might we respond?</li> </ul> This is the pragmatic task of practical theological interpretation. The aim is to determine strategies of action that will influence situations in ways that are desirable. Here I looked into the possibility of using the principles of a sport development program like Ubabalo for liturgical catechesis. Practical suggestions were made. Ubabalo is practical and based on sound educational and sport science principles. Their aim is to transfer Biblical values while coaching different sports. They want to assist a fatherless generation. Sport is a tool, a vehicle to establish discipleship groups introducing Discovery Bible Studies. Ubabalo and Liturgical catechesis can interact in a useful way to help our youth understand what we belief, how we should live as Christians (behavior) and how we should interact and be a faith community (belong). In all of this our values play a very important role. We should inspire our youth to join in our efforts to keep the old tree (the Church) blooming for many generations to come. / Dissertation (MTh)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

Magister Artium - MA / Psychological interventions can take place in a number of ways. The familiar one-to-one therapeutic approach is appropriate in most cases, but within certain contexts the following can be considered as disadvantages of such an approach: it is expensive; it can only involve a small number (one or two) people at any given time. The result is that only a few people can afford this type of service, as well as the under-utilization of professional people's ingenuity and expertise. This is especially the state of affairs pervasive within the South African context, where there exists a great need to involve more clients simultaneously. The latter can be achieved by using the model of the Psycho development process. As a result, Psycho-development programmes has become increasingly relevant in Psychology, Education and associated disciplines. Family Psychology is a field which presents a number of possibilities, concerning the social development of married couples. The development of psycho-social life-skills of married couples, is a specific area in which little research has been done to date - a fact which should be noted. The purpose of the present study was to devise a programme for the development of psycho-social life-skills for married couples. In addition, the results of the programme on an experimental group of married couples were ascertained. For evaluation of the effectiveness of the 'programme, a qualitative evaluation was done by conducting informal discussions with couples who participated. in the programme. 287 In conclusion, the general applicability of the programme for continued use, was assessed. The motivation for the present research was two-folded. Firstly, the author observed deficiencies in the psycho-social life-skills of couples. This observation was reinforced and confirmed through discussions with married couples, social workers and psychologists. Secondly, the assumption that the development of psycho-social life-skills should receive more attention, was confirmed through relevant literature. Most of the existing enrichment-programmes have limited attraction for potential couples. The programme that has been developed to address the problem of deficient psycho-social life-skills of couples, consists of the following sections, namely, "Getting acquainted and listing of strength "Why couples argue II j "Win-Win conflict negotiation" j "Understanding one another and communicating love to your parner"j "Sharing your feelings with your partner and assessing your sexual relationship". The assumption was that there would be a significant difference between couples that took part in a intervention programme (experimental group) and couples that did not take part in a intervention programme (control group). This was operationalised by involving 38 couples (sample) of which 18 couples (experimental group) took part in the intervention programme and 20 couples (control group) who did not take part in the intervention programme. During evaluation the fuctioning of couples was used as criteria, using the Dyadic Adjustment scale (Spanier, 1976) as the evaluation-instrument. The programme was implemented at the beginning of 1996 by applying it to an experimental group. Both the randomly selected experimental group and the control group (N = 76) were assessed by using the standardized measuring instrument. After pre-testing, the programme was implemented over a period of five weeks. Re-measurement (post-testing) occurred during the following two weeks and the follow-on measurement (post-posttesting), 17 weeks after the implementation of the program. Statistical analysis (quantitative investigation) after the implementation of the programme, indicated that the experimental group derived considerable benefit from the programme. This group obtained significantly better results than the control group in every section covered by the programme. These conclusions agree with the predominantly positive comments of the. participants about the quality and suitability of the programme. In conclusion it can be said that the main objectives of the research were accomplished, namely to devise a functional programme for the development of psycho-social life-skills for married couples, and that the validity of the programme has been established, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MA (Social Work))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Social Work and Criminology / Unrestricted

The North-West University (NWU) is an example of an organization that has a social responsibity towards the community and the environment within which it finds itself (Van Schalkwyk, 2013). One of the social responsibility programmes of the NWU-Pukke is known as the Students’ Rag Community Service (SRCS). The SRCS is a registered NPO (non-profit organization) which is run by the students of the NWU Potchefstroom Campus and which has been in existence since 1992 in its present form. In this study it is argued that the SRCS developmental projects could be offered in a more effective and sustainable manner by implementing the basic principles of the participatory approach, viz. Participation, dialogue, empowerment and cultural identity in order to support the local communities in their developmental processes. For the present study the focus was solely on one of the SRCS projects, the Pick a leader-leadership development project. This project has the aim of providing in the developmental needs of ten to fifteen Grade 11 learners in three schools in the North West Province (Potchefstrom and the surrounding communities in Ikageng). Thus project participants (learners) are instructed in basic skills about starting their own businesses (entrepreneurship); how to develop their leadership skills and to apply these skills, and how to be able to use basic life skills in their everyday lives. Various theoreticians have explained how NPO’s without participatory communication are seldom successful in terms of developmental initiatives. The learners can only develop if the relevant roleplayers of the project take ownership of the project by also being able to communicate in a participatory manner about their specific needs with both the NPO and the project volunteers. The NWU-Pukke volunteers, who manage this particular project, therefore have the responsibility to communicate in a participatory manner with the relevant learners, their teachers and then also the different principals to make the project succeed and to contribute to the realization of the developmental needs of the learners. The general research aim of the study had been to determine the nature of the communication among interest groups in the Pick a leader-leadership development programme of the SRCS. Qualitiative research methods, viz. Semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews and participant observation, were used in this study for purposes of making making a thorough investigation into the nature of the communication among those involved in the Pick a leader leadership development programme. The purpose of this was to determine perspectives about the project held by the persons involved (but especially those of the learners) and to interpret these in line with the normative theoretical principles of the participatory approach to developmental communication. It was ultimately found that the communication in the Pick a leader-leadership development programme was mostly one-way. / MA (Communication Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The North-West University (NWU) is an example of an organization that has a social responsibity towards the community and the environment within which it finds itself (Van Schalkwyk, 2013). One of the social responsibility programmes of the NWU-Pukke is known as the Students’ Rag Community Service (SRCS). The SRCS is a registered NPO (non-profit organization) which is run by the students of the NWU Potchefstroom Campus and which has been in existence since 1992 in its present form. In this study it is argued that the SRCS developmental projects could be offered in a more effective and sustainable manner by implementing the basic principles of the participatory approach, viz. Participation, dialogue, empowerment and cultural identity in order to support the local communities in their developmental processes. For the present study the focus was solely on one of the SRCS projects, the Pick a leader-leadership development project. This project has the aim of providing in the developmental needs of ten to fifteen Grade 11 learners in three schools in the North West Province (Potchefstrom and the surrounding communities in Ikageng). Thus project participants (learners) are instructed in basic skills about starting their own businesses (entrepreneurship); how to develop their leadership skills and to apply these skills, and how to be able to use basic life skills in their everyday lives. Various theoreticians have explained how NPO’s without participatory communication are seldom successful in terms of developmental initiatives. The learners can only develop if the relevant roleplayers of the project take ownership of the project by also being able to communicate in a participatory manner about their specific needs with both the NPO and the project volunteers. The NWU-Pukke volunteers, who manage this particular project, therefore have the responsibility to communicate in a participatory manner with the relevant learners, their teachers and then also the different principals to make the project succeed and to contribute to the realization of the developmental needs of the learners. The general research aim of the study had been to determine the nature of the communication among interest groups in the Pick a leader-leadership development programme of the SRCS. Qualitiative research methods, viz. Semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews and participant observation, were used in this study for purposes of making making a thorough investigation into the nature of the communication among those involved in the Pick a leader leadership development programme. The purpose of this was to determine perspectives about the project held by the persons involved (but especially those of the learners) and to interpret these in line with the normative theoretical principles of the participatory approach to developmental communication. It was ultimately found that the communication in the Pick a leader-leadership development programme was mostly one-way. / MA (Communication Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014