A Study of Three Program Types\u27 Effectiveness in the Prevention and Awareness of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to over 60% of the world’s AIDS cases; thus, HIV prevention and treatment is a pressing global issue that needs to be addressed with governmental assistance, medication, education, and overall community support. This research paper examines and compares the success of HIV/AIDS treatment, education, and prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa in order to determine which type of program is the most effective. The three program types that are examined are large-scale governmental policies and organizations, local community run grassroots organizations, and programs that combine grassroots initiatives with umbrella organization assistance. The general consensus of the reviewed literature implies that combination programs will be most effective due to their relative financial stability (as opposed to grassroots programs) and consistent interaction and involvement with the community (unlike large-scale organizations). This study gathered data through a qualitative survey distributed to key stakeholders of organizations in sub-Saharan Africa that represent the three types listed above. Eight programs were contacted, but due to international communication barriers and limitations on releasing private program information, only one key stakeholder completed the survey, while an additional two followed up with other information. Still, through careful examination of these particular programs it was determined that, contrary to the literature, the grassroots program was most effective in terms of education, treatment, and prevention

East of the Tracks: Grassroots Environmentalism in South Mississippi

Environmental justice literature challenges the disparity and oppression regarding the quality of life associated with residential environments among communities of color. Recent disasters, such as hurricane Katrina, the Tennessee coal sludge disaster (December 2008), and the BP Oil Spill (2010) have garnered visibility for environmental issues, particularly in the south. Nevertheless, the topic has largely been ignored in Mississippi among academia, many advocacy groups, and at the state level despite the emergence of several community based grassroots environmental groups throughout Mississippi in recent years. From Columbia, to Crystal Springs, to Hattiesburg, a coalition of environmental groups is forming with Hattiesburg at the center of the emergent movement. The success and longevity of the Forrest County Environmental Support team, in particular, led me to ask the following question: In terms of grassroots environmentalism, what techniques and strategies do community based groups in Hattiesburg use to mobilize and sustain collective action? This thesis provides a qualitative, applied ethnographic study carried out using a multi-theoretical approach informed by political ecology and frame analysis in order to explore grassroots environmentalism in south Mississippi

A Case Study on a Grassroots, Student-Led Facebook Community For Online Graduate Students and Alumni

This case study explores the evolution of a grassroots, student-led Facebook graduate student community to support graduate students within the University of Massachusetts Boston Instructional Design Program. The study explores literature supporting social presence construction within formal course environments, informal learning networks, and how social media can help bridge the gap between the formal and informal course space. A questionnaire administered to graduate students and alumni within the Instructional Design Facebook community suggests that a grassroots model has been highly effective at helping students feel more connected to each other. Conclusions and recommendations provided by this study will help inform and reform online graduate programs, universities, and learning management system (LMS) providers to meet the social-emotional needs of online graduate learners to feel and stay connected

Community innovation for sustainable energy

As in other countries, there is a growing public, policy and business interest in the UK in the roles and potential of community-led initiatives for sustainable energy consumption and production. Such initiatives include green lifestyle-based activities to reduce energy consumption (e.g. Transition Towns, and Carbon Reduction Action Groups), more traditional behaviour change initiatives such as neighbourhood insulation projects and energy-saving campaigns, as well as renewable energy generation projects such as community-owned windfarms and biofuel projects. Case studies of specific projects identify a variety of rationales amongst participants, whilst policy interest suggests a more instrumental concern for facilitating additional, larger-scale sustainable energy transitions. Amongst participant rationales are ideas that bottom-up, community-based projects deliver energy savings and behaviour changes that top-down policy instruments cannot achieve, due to the greater local knowledge and engagement they embody, the sense of common ownership and empowerment, and the social capital and trust that is generated among local actors. These resources provide organisational and values-based 'grassroots innovations' which experiment with new consumption practices based on alternative 'new economics' values. However, previous research shows 'grassroots innovations' face a series of critical challenges requiring support to overcome, in order to achieve their potential benefits more widely. This includes developing 'niche' networks for mobilising reforms both to highly centralised energy institutions and infrastructures, as well as deeply ingrained social practices of 'normal' energy consumption and everyday life. What makes this experience fascinating for the purposes of the SCORAI workshop is the way these community-based initiatives are trying to develop new energy-related consumption practices with a view to the socio-technical transition to local, renewable or lower carbon energy systems. Understandably, many projects remain practically focused on securing early successes and resourcing their long-term survival. However, the institutional and infrastructure reforms that will help in this endeavour require strategies for addressing the wider (national and international) political economy of consumption which adopts an ecological modernisation approach to sustainability. In surveying the community energy scene in the UK, our paper pays particular attention to this last issue

Scaling-up and rooting-down: a case study of North-South partnerships for health from Tanzania

Background: North-South Partnership (NSP) is the mandated blueprint for much global health action. Northern partners contribute funding and expertise and Southern partners contribute capacity for local action. Potential Northern partners are attracted to Southern organizations that have a track record of participating in well-performing NSPs. This often leads to the rapid ‘scaling up’ of the Southern organization's activities, and more predictable and stable access to resources. Yet, scaling up may also present challenges and threats, as the literature on rapid organization growth shows. However, studies of the impact of scaling up within NSPs in particular are absent from the literature, and the positive and negative impact of scaling up on Southern partners’ functioning is a matter of speculation. Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine how scaling up affects a Southern partner's organizational functioning, in a Southern grassroots NGO with 20 years of scaling up experience. Design: A case study design was used to explore the process and impact of scaling up in KIWAKKUKI, a women's grassroots organization working on issues of HIV and AIDS in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania. Data included documents, observation notes and in-depth interviews with six participants. The data were analyzed by applying an established systems framework of partnership functioning, in addition to a scaling up typology. Results: KIWAKKUKI has experienced significant scale-up of activities over the past 20 years. Over time, successful partnerships and programs have created synergy and led to further growth. As KIWAKUKKI expanded so did both its partnerships and grassroots base. The need for capacity building for volunteers exceeded the financial resources provided by Northern partners. Some partners did not have such capacity building as part of their own central mission. This gap in training has produced negative cycles within the organization and its NSPs. Conclusions: Northern partners were drawn to KIWAKKUKI because of its strong and rapidly growing grassroots base, however, a lack of funding has led to inadequate training for the burgeoning grassroots. Opportunity exists to improve this negative result: Northern organizations that value community engagement can purposefully align their missions and funding within NSP to better support grassroots efforts, especially through periods of expansion

Organizing and Representing Clerical Workers: The Harvard Model

[Excerpt] The private sector clerical work force is largely nonunion, simultaneously offering the labor movement a major source of potential membership growth and an extremely difficult challenge. Based on December 1990 data, there are eighteen million workers employed in office clerical, administrative support, and related occupations. Eighty percent of these employees are women, accounting for 30 percent of all women in the labor force. Among private sector office workers, 57 percent work in the low-union-density industry groups of services (only 5.7 percent union) and finance, insurance, and real estate (only 2.5 percent union). With barely over ten million total private sector union members, the labor movement can ill afford to overlook the thirteen million nonunion women who work in private sector clerical occupations. Concerned trade unionists are now searching for appropriate models for organizing and representing these workers. Two schools of thought have emerged. Some believe that clericals are like other workers and can be organized when job-related concerns predispose them to action. According to this view, private sector clerical organizing can proceed if and when unions devote sufficient attention and resources to the endeavor using conventional organizing techniques. Other unionists argue that clericals are different. Not only are they primarily women, but they also tend to be traditionally feminine and turned off by macho blue-collar unionism. According to this interpretation, a special approach is required regarding style, tactics, and/or issues to be addressed. I will focus on one highly visible private sector clerical organizing victory: the 1988 union win among Harvard University clerical and technical employees. The Harvard case is, in many ways, representative of the success unions have experienced among university-based clerical workers in recent years using rank-and-file grassroots oriented campaigns. And, as a private sector campaign that confronted intense management opposition, it also offers tactical lessons that are relevant beyond the confines of academia. Perhaps most important, the Harvard case presents us with a distinct organizing and bargaining model whose relevance to other organizing efforts deserves careful evaluation: the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) not only employed a grassroots organizingapproach, but also devised a unique bargaining strategy that succeeded in institutionalizing and preserving rank-and-file involvement