Welfare as a catalyst for development: A case study of a rural welfare programme
- Authors: Lund, Francie , Wakelin, Fiona
- Date: 1992-05
- Subjects: Rural development -- South Africa -- KwaZulu-Natal , Charities -- South Africa -- KwaZulu-Natal , Human services -- South Africa -- KwaZulu-Natal , Social service, Rural -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/65905 , vital:28856 , ISBN 1874897220
- Description: One of CORD's activities is the welfare programme, which started four years ago. It has two features which make it particularly interesting. First, it has introduced a level of welfare into rural areas which has not been there before. Second, it is based on a broad, developmental and holistic approach to welfare — which is what most people agree is needed, but very few actually manage to do. Welfare projects are often well meaning but small in scale, without the ability to help people out of the poverty in which they are trapped. We believe that this welfare programme acts as a catalyst for other development activities — it shows that welfare can be a wedge, a point of entry, for broader community development. It is one model for a more appropriate welfare system for the future. Compared to health, there is very little written material about alternative welfare provision. There have been fewer attempts at model building than there have been in health. And it is possible that some small projects have not been written up for others to learn from. A key aspect of innovative work in the social service and development fields is the training of new kinds of workers. This is almost always based on a recognition that existing professionals (for example, doctors, social workers, irrigation engineers, physiotherapists) •are expensive to train • are difficult to move from city-bases, and • are not necessarily good communicators with the people they are meant to serve. The South African government and the South African Council for Social Work (the body that finally controls professional social welfare) have agreed that there is a need for a new category of welfare worker — an assistant or auxiliary. The rules surrounding their training and supervision are such that, although it is a step in the right direction, it does not go nearly far enough. For example, every two assistants must be supervised by one social worker. In most rural areas there are no social workers, so there can be no assistants. When new categories of workers are trained, they often meet with strong resistance from two sides — existing professionals, and people in communities. In the welfare field, the strongest resistance will probably come from the professionals. We think that this welfare programme shows how the work of the professionals can mesh together with the work of people with less formal training, so that they can help each other to deliver better services to more people. The welfare context The welfare programme needs to be set against the context of existing welfare services in South Africa. The South African welfare system is inappropriate and inadequate — this is recognised by people in government, people working in the private welfare sector, and is certainly recognised at community level. The problems that are very evident are: • welfare spending and social services have been biased in favour of white provision • the system has not been properly planned • there is a heavy bias in favour of urban areas, and a serious neglect of rural welfare • where social work posts do exist in rural areas, they are difficult to fill. • the privatisation of welfare which is being encouraged by government (along with the privatisation of health, education, transport and other social goods) will mean that the well-off people will be able to buy better private services, but poorer people will have less access to even poorer public services. There is an emerging consensus across the country that if the welfare system is to have a contribution to make to the 'new South Africa' it will have to become: • more developmentally oriented • more appropriate to the conditions in which the majority of people live • more concerned with the welfare of the very poor, especially in rural areas • more accessible to people who need the services, and particularly by women and children. These principles are accepted internationally as guidelines for the provision of social services such as heath, welfare and education. In the field of primary health care in South Africa, we have many examples of model schemes which have tried to learn how to provide appropriate, affordable, accessible health services. Many of these have been written about; some indeed are known internationally. All these case studies are vital to the development of better health services in future. In most rural areas, and in the majority of peri-urban informal settlements, we are not talking of a situation where services could be improved by adding more professionals — we have a situation where there is virtually no access to welfare services at all. The interview that follows is presented as a case study of an innovative welfare programme.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1992-05
Report of the Conference on Women and Gender in Southern Africa, 30 January to 3 February 1991
- Authors: Gender Research Group Conference Planning Committee , University of Natal
- Date: 1991-02-03
- Subjects: Women – Political activity – Africa, Southern -- Congresses , South Africa -- Politics and government , Government, Resistance to – South Africa , Women – Social conditions – Africa, Southern -- Congresses , Women in development – Africa, Southern -- Congresses
- Language: English
- Type: text , conference publication
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/58278 , vital:27139 , This item is held at the Cory Library for Humanities Research at Rhodes University. For further information contact cory@ru.ac.za. The digitisation of this image was made possible through a generous grant received from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 2014-2017.
- Description: Women’s studies and courses which incorporate gender into their analysis have slowly, over the last five or six years, been gaining a toe-hold at South African universities. More and more academics, most of them women, are doing research in the area. Despite this, Women’s and Gender Studies are often marginalised and lecturers have to fight for the space to teach them. Papers on women tend to be ghettoised at conferences. Thus at its first meeting in 1989 the Gender Research Group (GRG) felt the need to celebrate this growing area of work being produced under difficult conditions by organising a conference. The purpose of the conference was to stimulate further research and provide a forum for the work people were already doing. The organising committee wanted the conference to be a place for debate with an emphasis on research and theory. The Conference was organised around four main themes: * Race, class and gender * Culture and ideology * Organising women and policy * Everyday life. It was the first academic conference in South Africa to focus directly on women’s and gender issues. It was attended by participants from most southern African countries as well as southern Africanists from the USA, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. There were sixty-four papers, some presented in plenary discussion and others in smaller parallel sessions. In addition, two panel discussions were organised, one on ‘Conceptualising gender’ and the other on ‘Organising women’ The conference was followed by two one-day workshops - ‘Teaching Women’s Studies’ and ‘Gender and Popular Education’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991-02-03