Working in a township is a challenging but also rewarding way of living. In this dissertation the researcher, in collaboration with the co-searchers, explore ways to mentor one another as they learn how to deal with trauma, either by experiencing trauma directly or witnessing secondary trauma. This leads to new ways of being 'in the moment', coping with trauma, forming a community of care and learning to be in an aware and empowered position. The responsibility of practical theology and the commitment to pastoral care are explored in the context of theology, and spesifically feminist theology, contributing to 'do hope' in Mamelodi. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Pastoral Therapy)

"The Response of African Religion to Poverty with specific reference to the Umzimkhulu Municipality" is a particular effort of the wider world that researches the ways and means for combating the scourge of poverty in society aiming at securing a better future for the future generations. In as much as African traditional religion is part of the culture, tradition and custom of its tenants, and as such aims at the wellbeing of its tenants, it is able to offer a response to poverty. It teaches about the importance of the values of community, meaningful and life-affirming relationships and the value of ubuntu. All these clamour for extended sharing and extended participation which are essential if society will continue to exist. African traditional religion maintains an ethic that says: `Real poverty results from the blockage of the vital links'. Celebrating economic achievements in food must be preceded by the celebration of people. `Batho pele': is the contemporary Democratic South Africa's slogan that suggests putting people in the center of life. It does not only call us to serve the poor, but also to allow them to champion the courses of the kind of service they desire. African traditional religion teaches that, together with the other institutions that govern the lives of people, religion and politics should have among other things a concern about production and distribution of the resources, hence the claim: `Food is also politics'. In their dealing with the problem of poverty, religion, politics and other social institutions ought to dedicate a special place to instilling positive attitudes towards the concept of work among their tenants. In this way the slogan `Batho pele' or people first, does not merely mean waiting to be served, but it also means that every body to the best of their ability ought to be doing something towards the production of the items of service. The inclusiveness of African religion in terms of what it calls `community' cautions society about the importance of the other beings in its consideration of poverty alleviation. Our economic wellbeing depends mostly on our attitude towards the other non-personal neighbours, prominent among which is our common abode, the earth, the land. / Religious Studies & Arabic / D.Th. (Religious Studies)

The rapid and sustained development of the rural regions of South Africa continues to pose an extraordinary challenge to the development community of the country. Policy makers continue to be overwhelmed by the lack of development in the rural areas in spite of the various efforts made to develop them. A review of the publications and development plans of the study region indicates that the planners have for long been pre-occupied with taking limited perspectives of the development planning problems. Development plans have been conceived and implemented in terms of individual sectors instead of looking at their relations with other sectors and regions. This study seeks to make a contribution to the solution of the development problems of the rural areas of the former homeland regions by demonstrating how an integrated approach to the research process and to development planning could make a difference to the lives of the rural communities. This theme is illustrated with reference to the rural energy sector and its relations with the broader regional development problems, challenges and plans of the Sekhukhune district municipality of the Limpopo Province. / GEOGRAPHY / MA (GEOGRAPHY)

The war on poverty is South Africa's priority and challenge. Many poverty alleviation programmes have been established in South Africa in an effort to overcome poverty. However, poverty alleviation projects have had little impact on the poverty profile of the country. Poverty continues to be pervasive, intractable, and inexcusable. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the personal definition of poverty as constructed by the poor themselves. In this study the researcher's main argument was that sustainable poverty reduction calls for effective strategies based on clear and consistent concepts and approaches. Different ways of understanding poverty lead to different ways of dealing with it. A common and clear understanding of poverty helps build a common agenda with development partners, linking specific causes of poverty in each setting with sustainable policies and action. A qualitative study was conducted with fifteen (15) poverty-alleviation projects participants from three (3) different projects. Data was collected with the use of an interview guide. The participants' responses revealed that poverty, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. The participants attached varying and interesting meanings to explaining the concept of poverty. The study also shed some light on the current state of the poverty-alleviation projects. / Social Work / M.A. (Social science)

This thesis discusses the involvement of informally housed communities in shaping local government policies aimed at poverty alleviation. Involving the poor in the design of anti-poverty policies at local level is regarded as an invaluable opportunity that should be used by municipal governments to make poverty alleviation efforts more demand-driven and therefore more relevant to the people they are meant to benefit. The argument is that because the poor know about poverty first-hand, they would be in a position to revive local government's capacity to respond effectively to their needs. But this does not come without a price. Because of the complexity of public management, participative democracy is liable to slow down the process of governance. It may also become advantageous to the interests of some people or groups of people at the expense of others if attention is not paid to the representation and consideration of all the voices in the community–to name two drawbacks. For this reason, it is essential to the realization of an effective bottom-up approach to anti-poverty policy-making that certain conditions are in existence and practical issues of involvement are worked through. Accordingly, it is the intention of this study to focus on two particular areas (conditions and practical issues that would facilitate the process of involving informally housed communities in the design of local government policies that affect their lives), which are investigated with particular reference to the South African context. Drawing upon a series of field surveys and a broad selection of relevant works of scholars from both the international and local scene, the picture that emerges is that there needs to be a proper level of government's commitment, capacity and legally binding responsibility coupled with a healthy degree of community's motivation, ability and organizational capacity in order to involve the poor in local governance efficiently. The study has also found that there needs to be proper forms of involvement (the most relevant of which are identified as an ombudsman, public meetings and residents' committees) that are to be employed with attention to such issues as stakeholders to be engaged, degree of participation, timing of involvement and topics for which public debate may be sought. / Development Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

This dissertation looks at the impact of East Coast Fever on African homestead society in Natal in the period 1901-1910. The disease broke out in Natal at the beginning of 1904. With the realization that East Coast Fever was another lethal epizootic, the Natal Colonial Government introduced measures to control the spread of the disease and finally eradicate it. The campaign was, however, not successful. The disease thus spread throughout the colony and led to the loss of many cattle owned by Africans. By 1909 not more than four divisions in the colony remained free of the disease. The death of many cattle deprived Africans of the means of extensive cultivation, the source of income for the payment of rents and taxes, and Ilobolo. Many African males were forced to leave their homesteads for the towns and the mining sector in search of work. This eventually changed the nature of the homestead society. / History / M.A. (History)

The study describes the counselling journey undertaken with 270 patients at the Family Medicine Clinic at Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville, Tshwane, between June 2000 and December 2003. Of these patients 75% were women, 74% were black and 97% Christian, with half of them belonging to born-again churches. A majority of the patients (52%) were unemployed and the others employed in minimum salary jobs. A third of the patients had attemped suicide at least once before, and a third had lost at least one close family member. With these patients a narrative pastoral counselling practice was established. Narrative counselling was practised as a MEET process in which the patients' problem-saturated stories were mapped and their problems externalised; they were empowered through the deconstruction of religious problem discourses, and their alternative stories were thickened by means of religious practices. This was a pastoral practice with a focus on religious discourses as problem discourses, and on the deconstruction of these discourses towards alternatives stories of faith. The first aim of the study was to describe the faces of religious problem discourses. They are (1) power discourses that hold patients captive in divinely sanctions hierarchies of gender and class, (2) body discourses that alienated patients from their bodies, (3) identity discourses that placed the religious identities of patients in conflict with their other identities, and (4) otherness discourses that created barriers between patients and God. The second aim of the study was to describe the externalised faces of the problems ruining the patients' lives. Here Losses, Loneliness and Lack of money were described as problems causing amongst patients feelings of worthlessness, depression, paralysis, body aches and many more. The third aim of the study was to describe the characteristics of the narrative pastoral counselling practice that has been established. This practice (1) negotiates healing between binaries such as Western/African, culture and dogma/lived experience; patient passivity/patient agency; (2) respects the indigenous knowledge of patients as it is embodied in township spiritualities; and (3) aims at introducing patients to a community of care as well as a new community of discourse where they can experience spiritual healing. / Practical Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

The importance of formal education in socioeconomic development is an established fact. Formal education leads to better living standards through improved productivity, health and earnings. However, opportunities to acquire quality education are a function of a country's economic policy. This study inquires into the capacity ofthe South African macroeconomic strategy of Growth, Employment and Redistribution( GEAR) to afford people the opportunities to get quality education. The study shows close linkages between GEAR and structural adjustment programmes( SAPs). The study argues that SAPs and thus GEAR tend to have negative impact on the poor as social spending is reduced and education gets affected. This study concludes that GEAR is likely to impoverish the public formal education system, particularly in poorer communities. / Development Studies / M. Admin. (Development Administration)

The key challenge to socio-economic transformation in South Africa is closing the gap between the poor and the rich. What is distinctive about South Africa is the uneasy coexistence of poverty and opulence. This study seeks to explore the structural, historical roots of poverty among the blacks in South Africa by deploying Fanonian Critical Decolonial theory. This is the ideal theoretical approach to unmask the structural causes of poverty and inequality in South Africa. Colonial ambitions and the global political engineering of the world by America and Europe spans more than four hundred years, and is still very much alive today in subtle forms. This study asserts that this imperial history is the cause of poverty, lack of agency, and the hellish conditions under which many black people live. The rise of industrial capitalism and attendant urbanisation is at the core of this impoverishment of the black man. It is also shown that, once impoverished, the black man’s poverty gathers its own momentum, leading to more poverty that is then handed down to succeeding generations. Contrary to Eurocentric theorising, the study shows that blacks are not ‘problem’ people but people with problems, who, instead of being condemned, should be regarded with sympathy. This research thesis focuses on Alexandra Township and Sandton as symbols of poverty and privilege, respectively. The former represents Fanon’s zone of non-being where life is lived in conditions of want and poverty, whilst the latter represents the zone of being characterised by good living and prosperity. The thesis will demonstrate the fact that these anomalous socio-economic disparities are not natural but man-made, and therefore require the action of human beings to correct them. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

There is consensus that the majority of South African citizens, as a result of being unable to participate in local economic activities, are poor and it is increasingly difficult to bridge the divide between the rich and the poor. Apart from being a challenge for the South African government, poverty reduction is a challenge to most African countries as well. Though there are interventions by international development agencies to assist African countries reduce poverty, such efforts are derailed by, amongst other factors, lack of resources to provide for the multiple needs of the poor in countries. Poverty is a dynamic and multidimensional phenomenon that needs to be clearly measured to allow governments to design appropriate measures to reduce it. In South Africa the prevalence of poverty is associated with the legacy of apartheid and amongst other initiatives, the Integrated Development Planning (IDP) approach, is seen as a distinctive local government initiative to help municipalities in reducing poverty. Municipalities, through this initiative are central to development planning. This study used a quantitative research method consisting of both the survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, respectively targeting households’ heads in the broader community of the KSD and directors of departments in the KSD municipality. From the findings of this study, King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality's IDP contributes towards achieving the goals of poverty reduction. Like in most municipalities, the KSD municipality started implementing the IDP in 2000. Though the municipality has made a significant progress in the provision of services, it still is faced with many challenges such as an insufficient IDP consultation process, poorly maintained infrastructure, budget constraints, poor coordination of activities between municipal departments and lack of monitoring and evaluation. / Public Administration & Management / M.A. (Public Administration)