The Determinants of Livelihood Diversification Strategies in Qecha Bira Woreda, Kambata Tambaro Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Rural households engage in to livelihood diversification activities to ensure their food needs. The livelihood diversification is determined by different factors. This study investigated the determinants of these strategies in Qecha Birra woreda. Multistage sampling technique was employed to select 355 household heads of study area. The descriptive statistics result indicated that majority of the rural households (41.6%) engaged into on farm activity. However, the rest 22.54%, 21.41% and 14.37% combine on farm with off farm, non-farm and off farm plus non-farm livelihood activities respectively. This shows that agriculture is still dominant livelihood activity in the study area. Multinomial logistic regression model result demonstrated sex of the household heads, age, education status, training, and extension service, credit access, livestock ownership and market access are found to be significant determinants of the diversification. Therefore due attention should be given to strengthen livelihood diversification strategies so as to improve food security. Keywords: Livelihood, Diversification, Determinants, multinomial Logit model, Food security DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-9-02 Publication date:May 31st 201

Determination of factors impacting the performance of the CBNRM programme in Botswana

This research study seeks to determine which factors contribute to the performance of Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme in Botswana. The Botswana Government initiated the CBNRM programme as a means of encouraging sustainable use of natural resources and eradicating poverty. Previous researchers have found that CBNRM projects are not performing at a level that they should be. Therefore this study sought to understand why that was the case. Literature review was carried out to determine what these factors were. The study focused on the performance of CBNRM programme at National level. It investigates the key factors perceived by the three key stakeholders (DWNP, DFRR, and BTB) involved in the programme at National level. A qualitative research approach was followed, in which interviews of seven representatives of key stakeholder organizations (primary data) and CBNRM documents (secondary data) were used as a means of obtaining the required information. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis to identify any emergent themes or patterns developing from the selected participants and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to establish which CBNRM Programme Performance Criteria influence the performance of CBNRM projects in Botswana. The findings from the AHP Criteria Expert questionnaire found that CBNRM stakeholder factors were rated higher than other factors influencing CBNRM programme performance in Botswana. The majority of the respondents said the programme was performing fairly, although there areas which were thought to be lacking, such as the absence of a CBNRM ACT of Parliament, poor coordination and monitoring and a lack of benefits realization by communities. Furthermore, the study found that there was not much of big difference between the literature that was reviewed and the views of the respondents. The study however did not examine CBNRM programmes at District level (individual projects). It focused mainly on the factors influencing programme performance at National level

Disaster preparedness of registered nurses in a central hospital in Johannesburg

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences,University of the Witwatersrand,Johannesburg in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Nursing Johannesburg, 2017Background: Approximately 250 million people per year are affected by disasters (manmade or natural). In South Africa, the types of disasters that occur commonly are road accidents, manmade fires, explosions, storms, river floods and wild fires. The challenges faced in dealing with the complexity of disasters requires each nurse to have a knowledge base and minimum set of skills to enable them to plan for and respond to a disaster in a timely and appropriate manner. Purpose: To ascertain whether registered nurses, practicing in medical and surgical wards in a central hospital in Johannesburg are prepared for disasters. Design: A quantitative, descriptive, exploratory survey study design was used in this study. Method: The study was conducted in a central hospital in Johannesburg. A survey questionnaire, developed by Fung et al. (2008) and modified for the South African setting, was used for this study. The population for this study was 192 registered nurses, working in the medical and surgical wards of a central hospital in Johannesburg. A total sample of 192 participants was used. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics, ordinal logistic regression and summative content analysis. Statistical assistance was sought from a statistician. Results: Four major findings emerged from the data. The data revealed the majority of the nurses(52.45%: n=75)had not previously participated in disaster activities and had limited disaster training and education. Previous participation in disaster activity had influenced nurse’s disaster preparedness, however nurses perceived themselves generally prepared. Conclusion statement: even though nurses have indicated the need and interest in attending educational courses on disaster, the majority have not attended them. Disaster drills have also been found to be an important exercise to assist the nurses in disaster preparedness. Therefore hospitals are urged to be consistent with their disaster drills and regularly update their disaster management protocols. Clinical significance: An understanding of how prepared registered nurses perceive themselves to be, to respond to a disaster, would help assist in identifying the weaknesses and strengths in disaster preparedness in medical and surgical wards.MT201

Clients’ experience of therapist-disclosure: Helpful and hindering factors and conditions

In psychotherapy, the norm and expectation is for clients to self-disclose, thus disregarding and discouraging self-disclosure by therapists. This study aimed to investigate clients’ subjective experience of therapist disclosure, and in particular how clients interpret, appraise and react to therapist disclosure, using semi-structured interviews to gather data from eight research participants. By means of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of the data three basic themes were revealed: (1) perceived underlying conditions of the disclosure event, (2) disclosure type and (3) disclosure impacts. The findings indicate that the underlying conditions surrounding the therapist’s disclosure are the determinant factor as to how clients experience therapist disclosure, regardless of either the disclosure type or the impact of the disclosure on clients’ lives

Birds and bees, the ‘r’ word and zuma’s p*nis: censorship avoidance strategies in a south african online newspaper’s comments section

Although linguistic practices in online platforms continue to receive fair scholarly attention, limited research has been conducted on online censorship avoidance strategies in South Africa about online newspapers. We use notions of semiotic remediation on comments on two articles on a nude painting of former South African President Jacob Zuma in a popular South African online publication, SowetanLive, to show how the commentators creatively avoid censorship and to operationalise their right of freedom of expression. Particularly, we show the various ways commentators transform and recontexatualise existing semiotic affordances of punctuation marks, letters, digits, South African English, indigenous South African languages and cultural knowledge to achieve new and extended meanings while simultaneously avoiding censorshi

Stylisation of identities in online discourses related to The Spear on Sowetan LIVE

Magister Artium - MAThis study focuses on a story featured on Sowetan LIVE, one of South Africa’s online newspapers. The flexibility of the mode in which the newspaper is produced, enables users to comment on its articles as they are published. The online newspaper was preferred due to its socio-political history and the huge South African audience it seems to attract. This study looks at one particular story which appeared on Sowetan LIVE and generated much interest in South Africa. The story is about a painting depicting President Jacob Zuma with his genitals exposed, termed The Spear by Brett Murray. This painting triggered a high volume of comments and engagement among South Africans on the Sowetan LIVE website, making it a valuable resource of online discourse. Therefore, this study explored comments in response to the two articles published on the Sowetan LIVE namely, “ANC takes battle of The Spear to court” and “Will Zuma’s spear stay up?” which when combined, ‘generated’ 1358 comments. This study particularly investigates the identities that emerged from the discourses found in the data and analyses the type of linguistic practices evident in the comments. In this regard, the main objective of the study is not only to determine how users style their social identities, but also their ‘linguistic’ ones during online interactions. In terms of social identities, the findings illustrate a distinction between traditional and modern identities ‘represented’ by Jacob Zuma and Brett Murray, respectively. However, although a distinction is evident, contradictions exist among the respective identities which feed back into the notion of identity as performative and fluid. In this way, the study reveals that the identities emanating from these discourses provide a glance at South Africa’s intricate identity ‘battle’, a ‘battle’ which is no longer solely based on race or collective identity, but more on the creation of new identities and perceptions based on traditional ones or a complete divorce of traditional identities. With regards to linguistic identity, the findings indicate that hybrid linguistic practices are a norm among the participants. This is because all participants employ netspeak features such as phonetic spellings, letter / number homophones and creative use of punctuation / capitalisation for emphasis or stress. Interestingly, although netspeak is evident from the findings common in online linguistic practices, this study has found that the use of such features is not random. This is so because participants tend to strategically fuse these features into the linguistic practices as a means to avoid censorship. This fusion and, ultimately, censorship avoidance strategies, rely on the re-purposing of semiotic resources. In this vein, the most used censorship avoidance strategies in the study are discussed and analysed in terms of context and the discourses that inform them. Furthermore, upon analysing the usernames and avatars selected by participants as part of identity construction, the findings demonstrate that these are used as an extension of the participants’ identities. From the findings of the study, it can be concluded that the South African youth’s identity and their perception of identity itself is in flux – ‘norms’ are constantly being re-invented. In essence, this study adds to an understanding of how historical material is re-purposed through an exploration of an online interactive feature that is posting of comments on an article of interest. It also contributes to an understanding of the hybrid nature of online linguistic practices

Factors influencing the utilization of voluntary counselling and testing services amongst employees of the Lobatse Town Council in Botswana

In this study both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to find out to what extent the Lobatse Town Council employees used Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) HIV and AIDS services, the reasons for using or not using the services, the preferred service providers reasons for choosing a service provider. Lastly recommendations were made on how the uptake HIV and AIDS VCT services could increased amongst the employees. A sample of 200 respondents was selected from the employees of the Lobatse Town Council, and it was established that 65.5 percent of the respondents had used VCT. Females had a higher testing participation rates than males, white collar respondents had a higher testing participation than the blue collar respondents. There was a higher rate amongst the married than the single respondents and the older ages of 30 and above than the young ages of 29 years and under. In the study it was also established that the majority of the respondents considered voluntary counselling and testing for HIV and AIDS as being important. However there were some groups that were more positive than others regarding the importance of testing. More females than males were positive regarding the importance of testing, and also amongst the employment categories the white collar respondents were more positive than the blue collar respondents regarding the importance of HIV and AIDS testing. Furthermore it was established that the most important reason for testing amongst the employees that did test for HIV and AIDS was that they felt that they needed to undergo testing before they tested. The respondents that did not test for HIV and AIDS indicated that the most important reason for not testing was that they were scared the results could not be kept confidential. The research also showed that the most preferred service provider was Tebelopele. Tebelopele was the most used and preferred service provider amongst both gender and age groups, all marital groups and the blue collar group in the employment categories. However, for the white collar group the most preferred service provider was the private practitioners. The most common reason for choosing a service provider was confidentiality and privacy. Lastly, the research makes recommendations on what needs to be done to increase the uptake of VCT HIV and AIDS testing amongst the Lobatse Town Council employees. One of the recommendations is that there was a need to educate the employees of the Lobatse Town Council and that the education should be specific for each group. For example from the group discussion the participants felt that the reason to why males did not want to utilise HIV and AIDS VCT was because they lacked knowledge on the importance of testing. Also the respondents indicated that there was a need to remove stigma and discrimination through removing confidentiality attached to HIV and AIDS. It was also, recommended that the Lobatse Town Council formulate and implements a workplace policy on HIV and AID

Factors influencing the utilization of voluntary counselling and testing services amongst employees of the Lobatse Town Council in Botswana

In this study both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to find out to what extent the Lobatse Town Council employees used Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) HIV and AIDS services, the reasons for using or not using the services, the preferred service providers reasons for choosing a service provider. Lastly recommendations were made on how the uptake HIV and AIDS VCT services could increased amongst the employees. A sample of 200 respondents was selected from the employees of the Lobatse Town Council, and it was established that 65.5 percent of the respondents had used VCT. Females had a higher testing participation rates than males, white collar respondents had a higher testing participation than the blue collar respondents. There was a higher rate amongst the married than the single respondents and the older ages of 30 and above than the young ages of 29 years and under. In the study it was also established that the majority of the respondents considered voluntary counselling and testing for HIV and AIDS as being important. However there were some groups that were more positive than others regarding the importance of testing. More females than males were positive regarding the importance of testing, and also amongst the employment categories the white collar respondents were more positive than the blue collar respondents regarding the importance of HIV and AIDS testing. Furthermore it was established that the most important reason for testing amongst the employees that did test for HIV and AIDS was that they felt that they needed to undergo testing before they tested. The respondents that did not test for HIV and AIDS indicated that the most important reason for not testing was that they were scared the results could not be kept confidential. The research also showed that the most preferred service provider was Tebelopele. Tebelopele was the most used and preferred service provider amongst both gender and age groups, all marital groups and the blue collar group in the employment categories. However, for the white collar group the most preferred service provider was the private practitioners. The most common reason for choosing a service provider was confidentiality and privacy. Lastly, the research makes recommendations on what needs to be done to increase the uptake of VCT HIV and AIDS testing amongst the Lobatse Town Council employees. One of the recommendations is that there was a need to educate the employees of the Lobatse Town Council and that the education should be specific for each group. For example from the group discussion the participants felt that the reason to why males did not want to utilise HIV and AIDS VCT was because they lacked knowledge on the importance of testing. Also the respondents indicated that there was a need to remove stigma and discrimination through removing confidentiality attached to HIV and AIDS. It was also, recommended that the Lobatse Town Council formulate and implements a workplace policy on HIV and AID