The thesis aims at bringing into light the horrible traumatic experience of Poverty under which the former Moçambican refugees living in the Bushbuckridge area near Hazyview live. Unlike other writers who define poverty as a mere “insufficiency of the material necessities of life” (Hammond 2003:61) and “the inability of individuals, households or entire community to command sufficient resources to satisfy a socially acceptable minimum standard of living” (Pieterse 2001:30). The author approaches poverty in a holistic and integrated way, taking into account the political, economic, social, and behavioural as well as the spiritual component. The historical background of the violent war in Moçambican is given to enable the reader to understand how the Moçambican people were traumatized by the brutal killings that forced them to flee for safety in neighbouring countries including South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, etc. The author further aims at challenging the church, government, civil society and other concerned stakeholders to contribute meaningfully in working towards bringing positive change in the living conditions of these refugees. The combination of both quantitative and qualitative approaches is used to collect data necessary for the education of stakeholders on the poverty situation of the refugees. Academic literature alone is seen not to be sufficient as it may hover above the experience of these refugees. Quantitative approach will therefore help to engage the refugees to tell stories from their perspectives. The use of a structured questionnaire form is therefore used to obtain the data needed to help the concerned stakeholders gain a truer perception of the situation. This engagement of stakeholders is aimed at providing the refugees with opportunities to increase their awareness, and to help in the development of their skills to help them live effectively and deal with their problems more competently and independently. The study concludes with a summary of each chapter, suggesting ways and means of how the problem of persistent traumatic poverty among the Moçambican refugees can be addressed. / Dissertation (MA (Theology) : Practical Theology)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

The following thesis is a qualitative study of career barriers and opportunities for women in commercial real estate in Sweden. Additionally the purpose is to make suggestions for positive change opportunities for the industry as a whole. The Swedish real estate industry is currently experiencing a rather substantial generational change in addition to a shortage of interest from the younger generations. It is male dominated and still largely considered to be conservative in its values and practices. There is a need for re-branding and enhanced marketing of the industry as interesting and open to change as well as a large untapped potential in the talent pool of women in the working population. The study has been performed through a literature review of current research and an interview study. Eighteen women were interviewed about their individual experiences and their views about the industry. The interview guide is partly designed to mirror the inequality regimes set forth by Joan Acker (2006). The results show that there are many underlying processes and structures found in theory that can be indentified in the Swedish real estate industry today, even though much work currently is done in many organizations to change the skewed distribution of men and women, particularly in management positions. Without doubt, there is enormous potential for change in the industry and using the information in this thesis could prove very useful.

No description available.

The aim of this study was to determine the impact of appreciative inquiry (AI) on the development of organisational culture after a merger. The empirical study was con-ducted among the employees of a telecommunications company in South Africa. AI was conducted after a merger of teams within a department of the organisation to assist in the development of a new and combined team culture. Interactive qualitative analysis (IQA) was used to determine the impact of AI on the new culture. The sample size for the study was 35 for the AI session and 20 for the IQA. A qualitative approach was adopted in this study in order to understand and explore the experiences of individuals who had recently been a part of the change process. The research design was based on IQA, a structured approach which constructs a systematic representation of the experience. It was found that AI allowed the teams to gain a new understanding of and insight into what it meant to work together as a unit. A significant difference was noted in the IQA facilitation that was performed six months after the AI session. This re-search therefore confirmed that the AI had a significant positive impact on the culture of the organisation under investigation. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

E-handel är ett problem för miljön som ständigt ökar samtidigt som det öppnar upp för nya svårigheter. Det störst växande problemet är hur enkelt det är att handla online. Detta leder till andra konsekvenser, såsom underpackning. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka framtida lösningar för att minska E-handel genom att försvåra processen och minska mängden underpackning som sker.   E-handeln är ett ständigt ökande problem för miljön som bidrar med flera problemområden. De största problemen är den låga fyllnadsgrad som sker men framför allt hur man kan motverka enkelheten att handla online (Hellström & Olsson, 2017).  Studien undersöker dessa problem för att komma fram till en spekulativ lösning som är framtidsanpassad.   Projektet har förhållit sig till Ceschin & Gaziulusoy (2016) teori kring design för hållbart beteende för att bygga en förståelse hur man kan påverka individen till en förändring inom hållbar utveckling. Detta arbetades med i en spekulativ designprocess som tog utgångspunkt i en djup litteraturstudie för att hitta designöppningar.    Litteraturstudien togs sedan vidare och utvecklades till fyra scenarion som sattes mot varandra i en polarity mapping för att belysa varje scenarios problem och kunna väga dessa mot varandra (Futures Design Toolkit, 2021).   Dessa scenarion användes i en generativ idégenereringsworkshop för att se hur användare hanterar de olika framtidsscenarierna. Resultatet av detta blev ett intressant utfall där återanvändning av emballage sågs som mest intressant och passande för framtiden då det motverkar nyproduktion. Dessa idéer arbetades sedan vidare med i en skissprocess där det togs fram ett koncept som även blev en del av kunskapsbidraget.   Kunskapsbidraget till designbranschen är en ny approach som belyser dagens problem som även visar upp vägen för att kunna påbörja en positiv förändring på området som börjar i att minska E-handeln. / Online shopping is a problem for the environment that continuously gets worse and opens up for other areas of problems. The largest growing problem is the simple process in order to shop online. This leads to other problems, such as underpacking. The purpose of this study is to explore future solutions in order to reduce online shopping by making it more difficult to order and reduce the underpacking that occurs.    The project has revolved around Ceschin and Gaziulusoy´s (2016) study regarding design for sustainable behavior in order to build an understanding how to make an impact on the individual to make a change regarding online shopping. This was then used in a speculative design process that started in a deep literature study that was used to find design openings.   This study was then developed further into four scenarios that were put up against each other in a polarity mapping in order to find the problems within each scenario. The scenarios were then used in a generative idea generation workshop in order to see how different users would act in order to find a solution for each scenario.    The result of this was an interesting case where the most interesting scenario was reusable packaging. This was seen as the most interesting and best suited for the future due to it minimizing production of new packaging. The ideas were continued in a sketching process that resulted in a concept of a new packaging.

Sudden personal transformation (SPT) was defined as a subjectively reported, positive, profound, and lasting personal change that follows a relatively brief and memorable inner experience. Although such change has been described in numerous biographies, works of fiction, and religious and scholarly texts, a consistent definition and systematic program of research is lacking in the psychological literature. Moreover, almost nothing is known about what causes such change from the subjective point of view of individuals who have experienced it first hand. This study used semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis to explore the common beliefs of three participants about the factors that facilitated and the mechanisms that caused their SPT. Findings reveal that all participants reported a life transition, feeling miserable, feeling exhausted, feeling unable to resolve adverse circumstances, reaching a breaking point, and support from others facilitated their individual SPT’s. All participants also indicated that a formalized activity or ceremony as well as a process outside of their conscious control (either a higher power or a deep inner wisdom) produced or caused their SPT’s. Implications for future research and counselling practice are discussed. / Graduate