M.A. (Social Work) / Poverty is perceived by various authors to bea challenge in African countries, including South Africa. O’Brien and Mazibuko (1998, p. 140) state that poverty “is characterised by a host of factors, including under-nutrition, unemployment, illiteracy, and unequal and poor access to health, housing, education and decision-making resources”. The above-mentioned authors state that these factors both result from and perpetuate poverty. According to Rogerson (1996), the effects of poverty are seen more among the black communities, and there is more poverty in the informal settlements compared to other residential areas. After 1994, one of the South African government’s key priorities was to eradicate poverty and the focus was on the improvement of the standard of living and quality of life for all South Africans. Various strategies and policies were then introduced in order to alleviate poverty, one of them beingthe introduction of social assistance (Ellis, 2011, pp. 63-72). According to Triegaardt and Patel (2005), social security in the developing countries, including South Africa, is very important for poverty reduction and ensuring a basic minimum standard of living for the people. The above-mentioned authors also emphasise that there is a need for ongoing monitoring and evaluation of social assistance as this will help to ascertainif the programme is making any contribution to the lives of the people and to help keep up with the changing environment. This study focused on the contribution of social grants to alleviating poverty in an informal settlement. The research study aimed to assess the beneficiaries’ perspectives on the contribution of social grants to alleviating poverty in an informal settlement. Some of the objectives of the study were to explore the perspectives of social grant beneficiaries in Angelo informal settlement on the role of social grants in their lives and to describe how social grant beneficiaries in Angelo informal settlement understand the impact of social grants on their poverty-stricken conditions. This qualitative study was exploratory and descriptive in nature. Ten individual semistructured interviews were conducted in the Angelo informal settlement using an interview schedule. Themes were used to categorise and analyse data. The findings indicated that social grants play a great role in alleviating poverty in an informal...
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:12670 |
| Date | 22 October 2014 |
| Creators | Sibanda, Simelinkosi |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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