Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA (DVS)

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    Beyond money: Evaluating the impact of Student Support Practitioners on the academic success of first-generation National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) recipients atthe University of the Western Cape
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Pritch robyn kate
    This mini-thesis evaluated the impact of assigned Student Support Practitioners (SSPs) on the academic performance of first-generation National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) bursary recipients at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). The study was conducted at UWC and used a mixed methodology of qualitative semi-structured interviews and quantitative questionnaires, informed by a literature review and the theoretical perspectives of the Human Development and Capabilities Approach, Human Capital {Haq (1980), Sen (1980), Nussbaum (1988 & 2011) and Alkire and Deneulin (2009)}, Social Capital Theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. There were three study units: 17 UWC NSFAS-funded bursary students from different faculties who were part of the REAP Programme and had an assigned SSP; 114 UWC NSFASfunded bursary students from different faculties who were not part of REAP and without an SSP;and seven SSPs who were interviewed. The sampled students completed an online questionnaire for the quantitative part of the study. The study found that students with an assigned SSP performedbetter academically and completed their degree in the required time. The data from the student participants and SSPs revealed that mental and emotional support should accompany the financialsupport provided by the NSFAS because of the multiple household related challenges that these students have overcome to qualify for university and continue to contend with once at university.
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    Gentrification and the disruption of space: residents lived experiences in Bo-Kaap, Cape Town
    (University of the Western Cape, 2024) Salie, Shafeeqah; Karriem, Abdulrazak
    Gentrification has become a global urban phenomenon that can be compared to the colonial project. Gentrification is a process whereby capital is reinvested in urban areas and designed to produce space for more affluent people rather than current occupants. Capital investment alters the environment, making it increasingly unaffordable and ultimately resulting in the displacement of the original inhabitants. Gentrification has a pervasive cultural element; it privileges whiteness and appropriates urban space and enforces Anglo-centrism. Gentrification imposes regulation of space; this takes the form of privatisation, neo-liberal public policy, class division, and displacement. The Bo-Kaap community has existed in the area for over 250 years; it is the only historically ‘non-white’ neighbourhood in the inner-city of Cape Town having been preserved as the Malay Quarter under Apartheid’s separate development policy. The community remains fairly intact and is the only working-class inclusive community in Cape Town’s inner-city.
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    The national health insurance (nhi) and women: making the case for the socialisation of accessing health services a policy perspective
    (University of the Western Cape, 2024) Oliver, Gabriella; Bayat, Mohamed Saheed
    The National Health Insurance (NHI) bill [B 11 - 2019], which was approved for adoption by the National Assembly (NA) of South Africa’s parliament on June 12, 2023, is the subject of this study, which offers a policy viewpoint. In doing so, the policy perspective attempts to analyse the degree to which the current NHI bill recognizes access to health services for women who are refugees and asylum seekers in particular. This study pays special attention to women who are asylum seekers and refugees because they are adversely affected by poor health outcomes around the world. Women asylum seekers and refugees are one of many variables in the health system in South Africa. The NHI bill and women asylum seekers and refugees are both variables of the same health system and therefore they are interconnected and linked. The linkages and interconnectedness of these variables are non-linear. Nonetheless, given the type of care that is contemplated in the NHI bill, the question that this policy perspective answers are: to what extent does the NHI bill in its current iteration recognize access to health services for women asylum seekers and refugees? And whether the type of care offered in the legislation satisfies constitutional muster.
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    Negotiating urban informality: narratives of politics and mobility in an informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa
    (University of the Western Cape, 2024) Ndwayi, Siyasanga; Koskimaki, Leah
    Recent work on ‘urban informality’- forms of urbanisation such as the growth of settlements outside the confines of the state and its policies- have begun to emphasise the politics and everyday negotiations of those living in these marginalised spaces. In South Africa, the creation of and the politics around such informal settlements have been largely shaped by the colonial history and legacies of spatial inequalities and racial segregation. This research examined the politics of im/mobility in a particular settlement in Cape Town, called Siqalo in Mitchells Plain. Through qualitative methods including open ended interviews with community leaders and activists in Siqalo, the thesis offers insights of how a group of activists and residents negotiate everyday challenges. It shows how being viewed as “encroachers” shapes their political and social life in the city and examines how a politics of belonging mediates their access to services and better livelihoods. Overall, taking decolonisation as a lens through which to study mobility, the thesis shows how informality and mobility are linked in contemporary South Africa.
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    Social capital and role of stokvels in the economic lives of poor people in Khayelitsha, Cape Town
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Kolweni, Lungile; Bayat, M.S.
    The study seeks to understand the role and the impact of stokvels, especially on low-income groups living in Khayelitsha in Cape Town. The focus is on the role of social capital and the economic impact on the lives of stokvel members. The study investigates how social capital is developed and deployed by members of stokvels. The economic benefits of stokvels to members are also interrogated. The researcher used a qualitative research approach in conducting this study. Individual interviews and focus-group discussions were conducted with members of the two stokvels. To supplement these observations, documentary sources were used as techniques to collect data. These techniques were appropriate for this nature of a study as they afforded the researcher an opportunity to get information about the operations of stokvels from the viewpoint and experiences of the stokvel members. The researcher visited two stokvels to observe proceedings in their meetings. Finally, the researcher went through the source documents of each stokvel to unearth relevant information, which other forms of data collection failed to uncover. The results of data collection were analysed, noting similarities between the results and common themes. The process enabled the researcher to come up with findings from the analysis of the results. Findings showed the positive economic impact of stokvels, as members have access to capital while they enjoy low interest rates from stokvels” loans. Stokvels” gatherings are characterised by entertainment, which allows members to socialise and understand one another better than before. In that process of interaction, social capital is developed. Members support one another when celebrating or grieving; in that way, social capital is deployed among stokvel members.
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    A comparison between Ethiopia and Viet Nam's approaches to reducing extreme poverty
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Durno, Darryn; May, Julian
    The World Bank working paper ‘Grow, Invest, Insure’ published in 2016 outlines a three-point plan to reduce extreme poverty to three percent by 2030. Specifically highlighting the achievements of Ethiopia in Africa and Viet Nam in South-East Asia, the plan maintains a growth-first strategy to reducing extreme poverty, while emphasising the importance of investment in human capital to aid productivity and complementary social insurance. This thesis reviews the three-point plan compared with approaches to reduce extreme poverty and outcomes observed in Ethiopia and Viet Nam in the period 2000-2015. Results from a synthesis of literature and data for Ethiopia and Viet Nam shows that, while growth-first strategies can be successful in reducing poverty, context is critically important. Both countries were sufficiently comparable in their population and political contexts and followed similar agriculturally led economic growth strategies. Both countries implemented campaigns to reduce extreme poverty over similar periods, through centrally managed regimes. However, where economic growth in Viet Nam catalysed economic transformation that enabled the expedient and sustained reduction of extreme poverty by 2015, Ethiopia exhibited only early suggestions of transformation and a strong tendency for transitory poverty escapes. Both case studies also clearly demonstrated that economic growth alone does not reduce extreme poverty. Transversal policy coordination and implementation that prioritises the targeting of integrated packages of support to the extreme poor, and offers graduated escapes to poverty, are required in order to enable households to exit poverty. These packages of support are both costly and complex to deliver. Where economic growth in a single nation cannot support them, macro-economic reform and political are insufficient to deliver effectively on extreme poverty reduction. Specific effort was made to confine the period of review and to draw on sources that the World Bank researchers would have been privy to whilst drafting their plan, in order to test the validity of the claims made by the authors of the plan. Considering the wealth of information available during the development of the three-point plan, which clearly demonstrates the inconclusive nature of its recommendations, this thesis raises questions about how the authors of the three-point plan justified their approach.
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    Seeking a dignified life: An exploration of the aspirations and experiences of women refugees in Cape Town, South Africa
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Frank, Lenishia; Koskimaki, Leah
    This study documented the experiences of a group of refugee women during the COVID-19 lockdown in Cape Town, South Africa. In late 2019, the women participated in a sit-in protest with a large group of refugees in the central business district in Cape Town against the xenophobic attacks and social injustices they have experienced with South Africa. During the protest the group of refugees gathered outside in the Waldorf Arcade near Greenmarket Square. On the 26 March 2020, after the nationwide lockdown to curb the rapid spread of COVID-19, the City of Cape Town forcibly moved many of the refugee protesters and families to a camp site situated at Wingfield in Goodwood. This research documents narratives of the women’s experiences, emotional trauma, and day to day life while they were settled in the temporary Wingfield Camp.
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    The effect of school feeding programmes among school-going children in Khayelitsha, Cape Town
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Sindi, Babalwa; Devereux, Stephen
    School feeding programmes (SFPs) are known as a significant form of social protection that seeks to address food insecurity and educational improvement worldwide. This study seeks to evaluate the school feeding programmes in Khayelitsha, Cape Town to examine the potential effects that they have on educational improvement as well as food security among school-going children. In addition, the study determines the general effects of school feeding programmes, including challenges that the programmes encounter; it then provides recommendations on how the identified challenges can be solved. This study used the theory of change to examine the effects of school feeding programmes in Khayelitsha.
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    Food Security: An evaluation of food choices, household food consumption patterns and health implications: A case study of Khayelitsha in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Mabusela, Abonga Aphiwe Athabile; May, Julian
    Many factors result in a shift in food consumption patterns. These include uncertain food production, unequal food distribution, changing food markets, food inflation and fast urbanization (Cockx et al., 2019). All of the above have been prevalent in the past decades and are still persistent today. These factors have not only intensified but have shown a rise in food related health issues and issues of food insecurity.
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    Investigating the role of Meals on Wheels Community Services (MOWCS) on food security among older persons in Brooklyn
    (University of the Western Cape, 2019) Nkurunziza, Magnifique; Zembe, Yanga
    Food insecurity remains a global challenge despite efforts to combat it in all its forms. Africa has the highest prevalence of food insecurity worsened by a deepened poverty affecting mostly children, women and the elderly. However, South Africa is a food secure country and has declared access to healthy food and clean water as a human right. Ironically many remain victims from food insecurity including the elderly. Yet, little is known about the elderly’s experiences with food insecurity, even less is known about interventions that exist to alleviate food insecurity among the elderly. For this reason, this study investigated the role of Meals on Wheels Community Services Centre in the promotion of food security among the elderly in Brooklyn, Cape Town. The study was anchored around the food security framework. The research was conducted using qualitative research methods. A total of 10 individual interviews and one focus group discussion was conducted with beneficiaries from Meals on Wheels Community Services Brooklyn Centre. Moreover, 3 key informant interviews were conducted with staff at Meals on Wheels. The data was transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis methods.
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    Public sector youth support services efficacy: a case study exploring neets youth perceptions and suggestions for improvement
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Hewu, Mzwandile John; Hart, Cornel
    Every country has challenges with young people who contribute little or nothing to national development and the welfare of society. They are now referred to as NEETs, meaning that they are ‘not in education, employment or training’. Originating in the United Kingdom (UK) in the 1980s, this acronym denotes a growing worldwide problem, albeit with regional variations.
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    A Critical Analysis of the Influence of Social Innovation in Addressing Food (In)Security in the Context of Natural Disaster
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Moosa, Shehaam; Mdleleni, Lwando
    The conventional top-down, command-and-control approach to disaster management and buffers implemented during times of crisis are often rendered unsustainable, as these strategies fail to encourage community resilience. In South Africa, recent years have seen the emergence of bottom-up practices and processes where diverse actors co-create solutions. However, despite these inclusive models, local communities remain plagued by poverty and food insecurity. These social inequalities are exacerbated in the context of natural and human disaster. It is against this backdrop that this study investigates the influence of social innovation, novel solutions to pressing social challenges, in addressing food (in)security during times of crisis. The study is qualitatively oriented and makes use of semi-structured in-depth interviews, as well as literature review and document analysis data collection methods. This research endeavour is affiliated to the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security and the Social Innovation & Development Niche Area/Special Projects Unit. The study is conducted, given the levels of food insecurity in South Africa, amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and its after-effects, past and ongoing floods and drought, insecure employment, widening inequality, climate crisis, etc. The study analyses the influence of social innovations that emerged to address the threat posed by the COVID crisis and the recent Cape Town water crisis on food security.
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    Impact of sport skills for life skills (ss4ls) on the development of capability sets of student athletes: A case study approach
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Kock, Nicolas George; Karriem, Abdulrazak
    In recent years, we have seen an increase in sport for development (SfD) research. However, a current integrated literature review on sport for development found that despite the vast majority of SfD projects being located in Third World countries 90% of the authors of the 437 peer-reviewed journal articles were from First World countries. Furthermore, despite the surge in research around sport for development there remains a dearth of SfD researchers who employ the Capability Approach (CA). Even more so when utilising this approach in a South African sports context for research, policy and practice.
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    Assessing the effectiveness of the Western Cape Provincial Youth Development Strategy: A case study of IAP Mitchell’s Plain Youth Café programmes (2014-2019).
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Nonxuba, Siphamandla; Ile, Isioma
    It has been more than 8 years since the Western Cape Government established the Provincial Youth Development Strategy in 2013. However, there has not been evaluative studies that assess the effectiveness of the programmes of the I Am Passion (IAP) Mitchell's Plain Youth Café. Drawing on both secondary qualitative and quantitative research data from 17 graduates who graduated from the Leadership Mastery Programme from IAP Youth café-Mitchell's Plain. This study presents findings in relation to two themes: Life before the leadership mastery course, and Life at the Youth Café and the anticipated life after the program (s) in connection with study objectives. The findings indicate that the leadership mastery programme effectively impacted the past graduates. However, the progress made when compared to the targets of the Western Cape Government as envisaged in the youth strategy is very little between the periods of 2014 to 2019.
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    Adulthood, home-leaving and informal settlement: a study of the Marikana informal settlement in Philippi East, Cape Town
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Batyi, Maphelo; Karriem, Abdulrazak
    Home leaving is an important marker of the transition to adulthood for young adults. Moving out of the parental home and establishing individual residence is often interpreted as a sign of independence for young adults. By transitioning to an independent lifestyle, young adults are able to meet their adulthood endeavours such as fulfilling their maternal and paternal aspirations, pursuing marriage, having children, seeking employment, becoming sexually active, and becoming socially and economically independent. Leaving the parental home is often associated with possessing economic resources. Young adults in urban societies usually decide to move out of their parental home when they have adequate economic resources such as income and transferrable assets. The rationale is that the more resources a young adult has, the greater possibility that he or she will establish his/her own independent residence. This is usually the case for middle-class young adults, but for lower-class young adults who come from townships, rural areas, and informal settlements, the case is very different. Lower-class young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds usually lack the necessary income and transferrable assets to establish an independent lifestyle.
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    Emergence from financial constraints through transformation to a research-led teaching and learning developmental university- University of the Western Cape 2000-2020
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Regal, Abduraghman; May, Julian
    The University of the Western Cape (UWC) was created by an Act of Parliament in 1959, the Extension of University Education Act of 1959 (Parliament RSA 1959), to serve as an institution of higher learning for the so-called coloured race to provide education and training in restricted fields and relative to occupations in the middle rather than the upper reaches of the racial stratification system (Wolpe, 1995).
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    Adulthood, home-leaving and informal settlement: A study of the Marikana informal settlement in Philippi East, Cape Town
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Batyi, Maphelo; Karriem, Abdulrazak
    Home leaving is an important marker of the transition to adulthood for young adults. Moving out of the parental home and establishing individual residence is often interpreted as a sign of independence for young adults. By transitioning to an independent lifestyle, young adults are able to meet their adulthood endeavours such as fulfilling their maternal and paternal aspirations, pursuing marriage, having children, seeking employment, becoming sexually active, and becoming socially and economically independent.
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    Exploring the use of social networks in accessing housing: A focus on the back-yard dwellers of Hanover Park, Cape Town
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Rustin, Giselle; Karriem, Abdulrazak
    This study explored social capital and social networks within the affordable housing arena. Although Apartheid officially ended in 1994 with the first non-racial democratic elections, the current housing spatial planning is still along racially discriminatory lines with little change to the current housing typography experienced in South Africa. The housing market and development lends to discriminatory behaviour, by categorizing certain racial groups and steering these marginalised groups back to housing choices in social and economically deficient areas. This engineered selection process perpetuates racial and economic inequality. This study aims to explore why these groups of people, without any social capital or networks, struggle to access resources. This study also aims to show the correlation between ill-equipped housing and health outcomes.
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    An assessment on social protection interventions for informal street traders in Cape Town
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Zondani, Busisiwe; Bayat, Mohamed Sayeed
    Social protection focuses on defending and assisting those who are weak, marginalized, or facing risks. (Browne, 2015). The unemployed, poor children and women, elderly people, and persons with disabilities, as well as those who are displaced, and ill, are amongst vulnerable groups that can be supported by social protection interventions, (Browne, 2015). These could be covariates affecting communities or regions as a result of climatic changes, inflation, civil unrests, protests, pandemics, epidemics or other pressures and shocks. Although there is a debate over the definition of social protection, most operational definitions include social assistance (which provides protection from poverty) and social insurance (protection against vulnerability). (Deveraux, 2012). Social protection's main goals are managing vulnerability and reducing income poverty.
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    School readiness and community-based early childhood development (ecd) centres in low income communities: Examining the case of Gugulethu, Western Cape Province
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Chikwanda, Miriam; Bayat, Amiena
    South African children’s access to ECD facilities has significantly improved over the years. However, persistent negative learning outcomes nationally call into question whether children are being adequately prepared for schooling. Most children in South Africa live in communities characterised by limited resources and poverty. These children start their learning trajectory with poor-quality early learning opportunities. The lack of quality early learning means that poor children not only enter the schooling system ill-prepared to cope and excel, and remain behind children who have had access to high-quality, well-resourced ECD facilities, but their poor educational start continues to limit their learning and life opportunities well into adulthood. The key to changing this is adequate school readiness preparation (SRP), including key aspects of physical, socio-emotional, language and cognitive development.