Problematising Civil Society- on What Terrain Does Xenophobia Flourish

Is there a need to reconceptualise civil society organisations (CSOs) given the fragmented, uneven, varied and sometimes contradictory responses of CSOs to the May 2008 violence

Perceptions and experiences of fathering among Black men who share residence with their children

The vast majority of fatherhood studies in South Africa have generally focused on absent, non-resident and unmarried fathers. Therefore, there has been a lack of studies that specifically investigate fathering perceptions and experiences, particularly among Black African men who are present in their children's lives and share residence with them. This study sought answers on how Black co-resident men perceive and experience fatherhood, through uncovering the fathers' understanding of their children's primary needs and factors that influence their parenting practices. Understanding their involvement included exploring their responsibilities, depth of their engagement, as well as the frequency of accessibility to their children. This study used a qualitative design, and specifically the exploratory approach, through face-to-face semi-structured interviews to understand the ways in which men who share residence with their children make sense of fatherhood. The interviews were conducted with twelve (12) Black fathers, sharing residence with their partners and young children aged zero to seventeen (17) years in Cape Town. Probing questions were asked to identify the meaning and unique understanding of their parenting practices, as well as their perceptions about their children's primary needs. Lamb et al.'s (1985) fathering involvement theoretical framework was used to further identify how the participants characterise responsibility, engagement and accessibility in their involvement with their children. The findings of this study suggested that resident fathers are generally involved in their children's lives right from conception. However, their level of involvement was different based on their cultural, socio-economic, and social experiences. Most fathers in this study still struggled to adjust their behaviour around child-care activities, such as changing nappies. Furthermore, they still considered child-care activities as something that was the responsibility of the mother, and when they got involved, they regarded that as helping the mother. Finally, this study confirmed that co-resident fathers are involved, and willing to participate, but often chose the activities they preferred, such as playing with or entertaining their children rather than actual child-caring roles

Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa.

No Abstract

Mothers, madonnas and musicians: A writing of Africa's women as symbols and agents of change in the novels of Zakes Mda

Abstract My dissertation interrogates the ways in which Zakes Mda has made women central to his novels. I argue that the women characters in Mda's novels are key to the idea of the rebirth of Africa (and the simultaneous birth of a (South) African identity) a rebirth made necessary by years of dispossession through colonialism and apartheid. I will explore how on one level Mda, through magical realism, represents women as symbols of both destruction and construction; and how on another level he represents them as complex characters existing as agents of history. Mda’s novels: Ways of Dying (1995), She Plays With the Darkness (1995), The Heart of Redness (2000) and The Madonna of Excelsior (2002) critique the topdown approach of the postapartheid, postcolonial discourse of African Renaissance a discourse which aims to reverse the damage done to the lives of Africans who have been brutalised by history. Mda writes an African renaissance (with a lower case “r”), which acknowledges and explores the ways in which people on the margins of power, recreate and transform their lives, without necessarily waiting for politicians to come up with policies and solutions. The renaissance of ordinary people privileges the spirit of ubuntu, whereby the individual strives to work with the collective to achieve a more humane world. Mda’s female characters are central to the debate on renaissance and reconstruction in that he questions existing gender roles by ii highlighting strongly the rights still denied African women his challenge to the discourse is whether a renaissance is possible if the humanity of women (and others marginalised by class, age, location, ethnicity, and other categories) continues to be denied. I ask the question whether Mda, goes further, and envisions women participating as leaders in traditionally male spaces

Optimisation of ligand-bound drug-loaded nanospheres for intracellular drug delivery in motor neuron disease

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, in the Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree for Master of Science in Medicine (Pharmaceutics) Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2016MT201

Autonomy and Financial Viability of Local Authorities in the Limpopo Province Republic of South Africa

Premised on the state’s capacity to govern ultimately derives from capacity to manage the budgetary process, this study relates to the autonomy and viability of municipalities in Limpopo Province. The autonomy and financial viability of the Limpopo Province local authorities poses a challenge to the provincial as well as national government. The purpose of the research was to examine whether local authorities in this Limpopo province are autonomous. In addition to determine if they are financially viable. A descriptive research was used to for this research. Based on the outcome of the study, the researched local authorities are not financial viable and autonomous as they depend on grants from national government

Modeling the Africa Diaspora Pension Fund: likely financing instrument for Africa's development infrastructure

The case study research sought to investigate and establish the attitude of the Africa diaspora community, mainly associated with the University of Cape Town, towards the modeling of a diaspora pension fund as a likely instrument for the financing of the continent's development infrastructure. The case study further sought to test, using chi-square and logistic regression, whether the independent variables of age, gender and education have an effect on the willingness/support of the members of the diaspora in the establishment of the diaspora pension fund for the financing of the continent's infrastructure. The results show that members of the sampled diaspora community support the modeling and also showed their willingness to be part of the diaspora pension fund and to have part of their pension contributions invested for the financing of the development infrastructure. The resulting model shows that males, who are middle-aged and well-educated, are more likely to be in support of the modeling of the diaspora pension fund as a likely instrument for financing the continent's development infrastructure. The results show that when modeling the diaspora pension fund factors such as age, education, gender, remaining years towards retirement, governance, corruption, regulatory issues, and the rule of law and the infrastructure of investment portfolio diversification have to be taken into account as they affect the likelihood of support amongst the diaspora community. The research will help policy makers, global pension funds, governments in Africa, and the bigger community of the Africa diaspora in assessing the feasibility of commercialising the diaspora pension fund as an innovative financing instrument

Development/exploration funding for black junior miners in South Africa

The lack of racial transformation in most industries has led the government to craft policies geared towards distributing the pillars of power and influence of all races, especially the previously disadvantaged people of South Africa. A policy is not standalone; hence, on its own will not lead to the materialisation of any of government's plans. It is on the back of this that a solution to any problem needs to be a product of a collaborative system. In 2015, over 80% of all prospecting rights held by black owners expired and changed ownership from blacks to whites. The purpose of this research study is to investigate the proportion of black junior miners holding prospecting rights that manage to advance to obtain a mining license and then to production. Moreover, this study aims to describe and explain attributes that influence the investigated phenomenon to derive mitigations and remedies. It is assumed that since black people could participate in natural resources, economic activity post the apartheid era of the nation, the representation of blacks in this industry regarding ownership of productive assets is still less than 15%. This study uses a qualitative research methodology by examining the funding challenges experienced by black junior miners in taking their projects forward by investigating the proportion of allocated prospecting rights to blacks that reach production. A literature review was undertaken as a backbone to the phenomenon being researched. The researcher conducted qualitative research, interviewing 12 respondents; 8 of whom are middle to senior managers in their prospective companies and 4 of whom are aspiring mining owners with prospecting rights. The research findings revealed predominant themes, among which are the inefficient application process, poor quality applications, little to no government support to help execute their transformation agenda within mineral economics, limited funding allocated towards the development of early-stage mineral resources projects and the nation's deficiency of experienced early-stage funders and funding mechanics. Practical recommendations were provided, and these show a correlation between a participant-private-public relationship that needs to happen to achieve the intended purpose of the study. In absence of funding commitment from private entities, the only option the country has might be to constitute a consolidation policy, forcing majors to financially adopt juniors with a clawback option

Study of lower sampling intervals on rainfall queue characteristics over Radio Links in South Africa.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Rainfall attenuation in tropical and subtropical regions of the world has continued to attract great interest; as there is a urgent emphasis on proper spectrum management and sharing, particularly at microwave and millimeter bands above 10 GHz. To this end, there have been arguments pertaining to the need to improve the ‘sensing’ of rainfall events to enhance the opportunities provided by adaptive rain fade mitigation schemes, while conserving base station power requirements during rainy events. To implement this approach, an extensive understanding of rainfall time series via the available statistical tools is often required to properly harness the characteristics of rainfall behavior. To this end, a study was undertaken to examine the behavior of rainfall and its impact on radio links at 1-minute sampling time by using the Queueing Theory Technique (QTT). Interesting results were obtained in the process of the study, except that the effect of the sampling time on rainfall queues remained unknown. Therefore, this thesis presents the investigation of the sampling time effects on rainfall queues over radio links in Durban, South Africa. Rainfall measurements were collected at 30-second sampling time using the RD-80 Joss–Waldvogel (JW) distrometer in Durban (29o52’S, 30o58’E), the same location where the 1-minute data was previously collected. As before, the rainfall data is classified into four rainfall regimes, namely drizzle, widespread, shower and thunderstorm. The queue parameters required for rainfall traffic analysis such as inter-arrival time and service-time distribution are empirically determined to be Erlang-k distributed, whereas the overlap time is exponentially distributed. It is thus established that the queue discipline for rain spikes over radio waves is a non-Markovian process (Ek/Ek/s/∞/FCFS). Comparison between the 30-second rainfall queues results and previous results of 1-minute sampling time, shows that more rainfall spikes are revealed at 30-second sampling time. Furthermore, it is determined that there is a strong polynomial relationship between the 30-second and 1-minute sampling time data – hence some of the 1-minute data may be converted into 30-second data by using the polynomial function, with the appropriate polynomial coefficients according to rainfall queue parameters in each regime. The converted data is amalgamated with the actual 30-second data for the investigation of the rainfall long-term behavior. It is found that the rainfall long-term behavior resembles the behavior of the short-term data - hence implying that the rainfall process at 30-second sampling time in Durban has the attributes of a self-similar process. From rain attenuation investigation, it is determined that since more rain spikes are evident in the 30-second data, the former has higher rain attenuation exceedance values (R0.01) compared to the 1-minute data

The University of KwaZulu-Natal approach towards community development and community service

Published ArticleThis article is strengthened by the current changes in the South African higher education environment and its impact on community development involvement within the University Sector. The South African Education White Paper (1997) and the National Plan for Higher Education (2001) are very specific when it comes to the role that higher education institutions should play in the development of communities and as a result contribute to wellbeing of the nation. The article is based on a case study of the Community Development Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The importance of the management of community involvement through various sources at the university is the main focus. The distinctive advantages of having the infrastructure at the university are critically looked at