Water, Women, and Local Social Organization in the Western Kenya Highlands

Safe water is widely recognized as both a fundamental human need and a key input into economic activity. Across the developing world, the typical approach to addressing these needs is to segregate supplies of water for domestic use from water for large-scale agricultural production. In that arrangement, the goal of domestic water supply is to provide small amounts of clean safe water for direct consumption, cleaning, bathing and sanitation, while the goal of agricultural water supply is to provide large amounts of lower quality water for irrigated agriculture. A new third use of water is now being given more attention by researchers: small amounts of water employed in selected household enterprises. This third use may be particularly important for women. There is a potential, therefore, that provision of modest amounts of water to smallholder farmers can enhance household economic production, save labor time for women and girls, and improve family health. This paper adds to the emerging literature on the multiple values of improved water supplies -- improved health, time savings, and small-scale production for individual farmers and collectives -- for the case of a rural community in the western highlands of Kenya. With minimum external support, two groups in this community have managed to install and operate systems of spring protection and piped water to their members' homesteads. Members of those households, particularly women, have benefited substantially in terms of time savings, health and small-scale production. The experience of this community also illustrates some of the challenges that must be faced for a community to effectively self-organize the investment and maintenance of a communitybased water scheme. There are challenges of finance, gender relations, and conflict over scarce water supplies, group leadership, enforcement of community bi-laws, and policy. Data from a census of springs in the same area show that successful collective action for water management is unusual, but certainly not unique, in this region of Kenya. Although women emerge as the main beneficiaries of improved water management in the community, their substantial contributions are largely hidden behind social norms regarding gender roles and relations. Research methods need to carefully triangulate information sources in order to clarify the very substantial and active roles performed by women. Kenya's water policy should be modified to better recognize and facilitate small-scale community-based water projects

Elementary Teacher Perceptions of Teaching Practices that Foster Creative Thinking in Students

Divergent thinking is a 21st century skill that allows individuals to create innovative ways to alleviate societal burdens by finding new solutions to old problems. However, creativity is often overlooked or ignored in the classroom environment because the rigid atmosphere of authority does not allow for the simultaneous use of multiple cognitive abilities. What can teachers do, or are they doing, to ensure that divergent thinking is fostered in their classrooms? Three surveys were administered to 32 elementary school teachers to determine if there is a disconnect between what teachers believe fosters creativity with actual practices within the classroom. Survey responses indicate that teachers\u27 personal beliefs, knowledge of creativity, and teaching practices do not indicate that they are fostering creativity in their classes. While teachers would like to provide more lessons that promote divergent thinking and foster creativity, mandatory standardized testing limits their ability to implement these activities

Water, women, and local social organization in the Western Kenya highlands:

"Safe water is widely recognized as both a fundamental human need and a key input into economic activity. Across the developing world, the typical approach to addressing these needs is to segregate supplies of water for domestic use from water for large-scale agricultural production. In that arrangement, the goal of domestic water supply is to provide small amounts of clean safe water for direct consumption, cleaning, bathing and sanitation, while the goal of agricultural water supply is to provide large amounts of lower quality water for irrigated agriculture. A new third use of water is now being given more attention by researchers: small amounts of water employed in selected household enterprises. This third use may be particularly important for women. There is a potential, therefore, that provision of modest amounts of water to smallholder farmers can enhance household economic production, save labor time for women and girls, and improve family health. This paper adds to the merger literature on the multiple values of improved water supplies – improved health, time savings, and small-scale production for individual farmers and collectives – for the case of a rural community in the western highlands of Kenya. With minimum external support, two groups in this community have managed to install and operate systems of spring protection and piped water to their members' homesteads. Members of those households, particularly women, have benefited substantially in terms of time savings, health and small-scale production. The experience of this community also illustrates some of the challenges that must be faced for a community to effectively self-organize the investment and maintenance of a communitybased water scheme. There are challenges of finance, gender relations, and conflict over scarce water supplies, group leadership, enforcement of community bi-laws, and policy. Data from a census of springs in the same area show that successful collective action for water management is unusual, but certainly not unique, in this region of Kenya. Although women emerge as the main beneficiaries of improved water management in the community, their substantial contributions are largely hidden behind social norms regarding gender roles and relations. Research methods need to carefully triangulate information sources in order to clarify the very substantial and active roles performed by women. Kenya's water policy should be modified to better recognize and facilitate small-scale community-based water projects." Authors' AbstractGender, Water, Collective action, Community organizations, Community-based organizations, Women,

THE EFFECTS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ON BRAND PREFERENCE THROUGH CUSTOMER LOYALTY AND BRAND TRUST ON LOCAL COSMETIC PRODUCTS IN INDONESIA

This study aims to solve the research gap between customer satisfaction and brand preference by combining customer loyalty and brand trust as a novelty. The context of this research is to observe the choices of Indonesian consumers in a variety of local cosmetic brands, which are increasing in number and have equal quality to international brands. The research method used is quantitative. The results of this study indicate that customer satisfaction has no significant positive effect on brand preference, customer satisfaction has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty, customer loyalty has a significant positive effect on brand preference, customer satisfaction has a significant positive effect on brand preference through customer loyalty, customer satisfaction has a significant effect. Positive on brand trust, brand trust has no significant positive effect on brand preference. Lastly, customer satisfaction has no significant positive effect on brand preference through brand trust. This research will develop local cosmetic products to compete with foreign brands

Shedding Light On Dark Pools: Recent Regulatory Attempts Toward Transparency And Oversight Of Alternative Trading Systems

The article focuses on dark pools wherein a small group of investors engage in investments among themselves bypassing the ordinary mode of use of stock exchanges. In additional, a brief discussion of high speed trading is included. Pros and cons of dark pools, and their regulation are highlighted .together with future regulatory trends