Know your rights! A basic guide for domestic workers in South Africa
- Authors: Labour Research Service (LRS)
- Date: 2010-06
- Subjects: Household employees -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa , Household employees -- Employment -- South Africa , Labour contract -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: book , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60041 , vital:27725
- Description: The demand for domestic services has increased globally during the last two decades and today domestic workers constitute a large portion of the workforce, especially in developing countries. Yet domestic work is undervalued and poorly regulated, and many domestic workers are underpaid and unprotected. This has been recognised by international organisations, such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The struggle of domestic workers has lead to improvements to their rights and conditions in many countries. Yet working conditions and wages remain poor in many countries, including South Africa. This booklet sheds light on this problem. There are 888 000 domestic workers in South Africa, which accounts for 7% of total formal employment (Labour Force Survey, May 2010). The vast majority of these workers do not belong to a trade union and do not partake in collective bargaining or are unaware of their rights to bargain and to join trade unions. The South African Domestic Services and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU) is a trade union for domestic workers in South Africa and campaigns for the improvement of rights and conditions of domestic workers. It recognises that it is not as powerful as it could be and it would have a bigger influence on the legislating authorities if there were more members which were strongly organised. There are numerous difficulties to organise domestic workers, some are related to the education level of the workers and some lies within the nature of the work (many are live-in workers and therefore have no contact with other domestic workers as a natural part of their work). However, SADSAWU has over many years built up a lot of experience and developed a solid vision to build a strong domestic workers movement, and is therefore well placed to fight these difficulties. This booklet also serves as an organising tool for domestic workers. The aim is to raise awareness of the rights of domestic workers and to encourage workers to organise.
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- Date Issued: 2010-06
Born-frees and worn trees: home grown medicinal plants and poverty
- Authors: Husselman, Madeleen , Cocks, Michelle L
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141464 , vital:37974 , ISBN 9781136886072 , DOI: 10.4324/9780203839645-19
- Description: Despite the widespread use of modern medicines, the parallel role of traditional medicine remains popular in both rural and urban areas and among both wealthy and poor African communities in South Africa. A substantial body of literature exists which documents some of the salient characteristics of the trade and use of traditional medicines (Ngubane 1977; Cocks and Wiersum 2002; Cocks and Møller 2002; Cocks and Dold 2006). Mander (1998) estimated that 27 million people used indigenous medicine in South Africa in a decade. The use and trade of plants for medicine is no longer confined to traditional healers but has entered both the informal and formal sectors of the South African economy (Dauskardt 1990, 1991; Cocks and Dold 2000), resulting in an increase in the number of herbal gatherers and traders (Dold and Cocks 2002). The largely informal trade in traditional medicines forms part of multi-million rand ‘hidden economy’ in southern Africa, and it is now bigger than at any time in the past. It is certainly one of the most complex resource management issues facing conservation agencies, healthcare professionals and resource users in South Africa today (Cunningham 1997). Research points towards a trend of increasing harvesting pressures on traditional supply areas linked to a growing shortage in supply of popular medicinal plant species (Williams et al. 1997, 2000; Mander 1998; Dold and Cocks 2002).
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- Date Issued: 2010
Cultivation of medicinal plants as a tool for biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation in the Amatola region, South Africa:
- Authors: Wiersum, K Freerk , Dold, Anthony P , Husselman, Madeleen , Cocks, Michelle L
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141489 , vital:37979 , ISBN 9781402054488 , https://library.wur.nl/ojs/index.php/frontis/issue/view/232
- Description: This paper describes the assumptions and results of a study to assess whether cultivation of medicinal plants can serve as a tool for combined biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation. The study was carried out in the Amatola region of Eastern Cape, South Africa, where sustained beliefs in medicinal plant use, also under non-traditional conditions, has resulted in an increase in commercial demands. It was based on the assumption of poverty alleviation not only referring to an increase in income and labour, but also an increase in social capital and human dignity. The study assessed the local perceptions of the use and cultivation of medicinal plants and the need for conservation of these plants, as well as the features of already ongoing cultivation practices and options for increased cultivation. It consisted of participatory assessments in three villages involving around 250 persons and participatory trials with 14 rural women selling medicinal plants on urban markets. The study indicated that the growing demand for medicinal plants is related to the great cultural significance attached to medicinal plants.
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- Date Issued: 2010
The Fishes of Zimbabwe and their Biology
- Authors: Marshall, Brian
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Estuarine fishes -- Zimbabwe , Estuarine fishes -- Africa, Southern , Fishes -- Africa, Southern -- Identification , Estuaries -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/167948 , vital:41524
- Description: The first comprehensive book on the fishes of Zimbabwe appeared in 1961 and was written by Rex Jubb. He followed it with a major treatise on the fishes of southern Africa published in 1967. These books were published at a time when interest in fishes – partly stimulated by the creation of Lake Kariba –was growing, and they were welcomed by anglers and scientists alike. Zimbabwean ichthyology progressed rapidly during the years following their publication and knowledge about our fishes grew steadily. New insights and understanding of their systematics led to numerous taxonomic revisions, bringing with them inevitable changes to their scientific names. At the same time increased collecting meant that new species were being added to the Zimbabwean list. By the early 1970s Jubb’s books had become outdated and there was a clear need for a new volume on the fishes of this country. The National Museums and Monuments met this need by publishing Graham Bell-Cross’ The Fishes of Rhodesia in 1976. This book was available at a remarkably low price and such was its popularity that it was soon out of print. It rapidly became outdated as well and was revised by John Minshull as the Fishes of Zimbabwe, published in 1988. This version had a number of new features such as the inclusion of exotic species and species discovered in the country since 1976, as well as name changes brought about by new developments in taxonomy. It, too, was available at a very low price and has proved to be very popular; the demand was so great that it was reprinted without alteration in the 1990s. By this time, however, it had also become outdated and there was a need for yet another revision, or for a completely new type of book. I have chosen the latter option in preparing this book, since there seemed little point in attempting to revise the earlier ones within their original format. I felt that it would not be desirable to produce another field guide type of book that would have to compete with Paul Skelton’s superb volume, A Complete Guide to the Freshwater Fishes of Southern Africa, first published in 1993, with a second edition eight years later. Instead, I decided that I should try to summarise the existing data about fishes in Zimbabwe. My dealings with students and inexperienced fish biologists has made it clear that many of them do not know what work has been done, or not done, on Zimbabwe’s fishes and they are not familiar with the literature. Much of it is, in any case, to be found in obscure publications that are not readily available in Zimbabwean libraries, which have declined in recent years and no longer subscribe to major international journals or even to local ones. This makes it very difficult to keep up with information or to track it down. I am aware, of course, that such a book will never be complete and may already be outdated at the time of its publication, but I hope that it will supply the basic background information for anyone interested in Zimbabwean fishes and provide a platform from which further studies can be launched. Wherever possible, I have used only data from Zimbabwe, although there may be an extensive literature from other countries for widespread or economically important species, such as Clarias gariepinus or Oreochromis mossambicus. This was a conscious decision because I wanted to summarise what is known about the fish in this country, so that other workers can assess what still needs to be done. Nevertheless, I have used some data from outside Zimbabwe, especially for fish from the upper Zambezi because of its relevance to our situation. As far as possible I have tried to use only published works as references, with the exception of university theses and some institutional reports, since most unpublished work is generally difficult to locate and ephemeral. The scientific names of fishes often change as systematic knowledge advances and the reader will note that there have been many changes since Bell-Cross & Minshull (1988) was published. Common names are a problem because of local variations and anglers in particular have various names (or nicknames) for popular angling species; I have used the standard names with these other names included in brackets where necessary.
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- Date Issued: 2010
What is biocultural diversity?: a theoretical review
- Authors: Cocks, Michelle L
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141475 , vital:37975 , ISBN 9781441957009 , DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-5701-6_5
- Description: Over the past decade, scholars from various fields have increasingly emphasized the detrimental effects of global socioeconomic processes on biodiversity. The industrial revolution, the demographic explosion of Homo sapiens, and the rise of the global exchange economy are all implicated as major factors that influence the loss of species diversity. From the late 1980s onward, biosystematics and conservation biology have successfully brought this concern to the attention of the public. Biodiversity is increasingly recognized as an essential resource on which families, communities, and nations depend. Biologists, ecologists, and conservationists have further recognized that solutions to biological problems lie in the mechanisms of social, cultural, and economic systems, which has led to attempts to place a monetary value on species and ecosystems to calculate the cost of using and conserving biodiversity.
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- Date Issued: 2010
Tributes to Comrade Richard Owen Dudley
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: South Africa -- Politics and government , Government, Resistance to -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/36936 , vital:34067 , Bulk File 7
- Description: This is one of many individual publications put out by the New Unity Movement and consists of a number of tributes to Richard Owen Dudley.
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- Date Issued: 2009
Using pictograms in a patient information leaflet to communicate antiretroviral medicines information to HIV/AIDS patients in rural South Africa:
- Authors: Dowse, Roslind
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/156817 , vital:40053 , ISBN
- Description: The objectives were to design a simple, illustrated patient information leaflet for the antiretroviral regimen of stavudine, lamivudine and efavirenz and to evaluate its readability and acceptability in the local Xhosa population. In order to achieve this, a further objective was to design and evaluate illustrations to include in the patient information leaflet which were culturally acceptable and well interpreted. Illustrations or pictograms were designed to illustrate selected instructions appearing in the patient information leaflet and were individually tested in 30 Xhosa participants who had a maximum of 8 years of formal schooling. Results were used to improve the pictograms for inclusion in the patient information leaflet. The patient information leaflet was designed and tested in sixty Xhosa participants with varied levels of education who had stated they could read. Demographic data were collected and they were then asked to read the patient information leaflet, available in both English and isiXhosa, and a series of questions was asked to assess its comprehension and acceptability. The overall average rate of understanding was 95. Six of the 20 questions were located and understood by all participants, and only two questions resulted in less than an 85 correct response. Physical appearance and quantity of information were highly rated and all participants were enthusiastic about the inclusion of pictograms.
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- Date Issued: 2009
Engendering childhood: concerning the content of South African Television content
- Authors: Boshoff, Priscilla A , Prinsloo, Jeanne
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143560 , vital:38257 , ISBN , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: The essays in this volume reflect a wide-range of issues and concerns related to children’s media culture in Africa. For example, several address the role of entertainment television in Addis Abba, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and Zambia and in the lives of Muslim children. Other essays introduce us to children-centered media from Ghana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, and the innovative programs of PLAN-International. In addition to entertainment media and children-centered media, media education and digital media literacy are also discussed.
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- Date Issued: 2008
Gendering children's lives: TV fiction for South African kids
- Authors: Boshoff, Priscilla A , Prinsloo, Jeanne
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: vital:38264 , ISBN 9780868104508 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/2476
- Description: Gendering children's lives: TV fiction for South African kids
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- Date Issued: 2008
The African reception of global media:
- Authors: Strelitz, Larry N , Boshoff, Priscilla A
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143527 , vital:38254 , ISBN 9781473971752 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=pfRcCwAAQBAJanddq=The+African+Reception+of+Global+Mediaandlr=andsource=gbs_navlinks_s
- Description: This chapter engages debates concerning the impact of global media on local youth audiences in Africa. Recognizing the profound rootedness of media consumption in everyday life, the chapter specifically examines the way selected South African youth audiences, differentially embedded in their particular economic and ideological formations, use local and global media texts as part of their ongoing attempts to make sense of their lives.
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- Date Issued: 2008
WET-Origins: controls on the distribution and dynamics of wetlands in South Africa
- Authors: Ellery, William F N , Grenfell, Michael C , Grenfell, Suzanne E , Kotze, Donovan C , McCarthy, Terence , Tooth, Stephen , Grundling, Piet-Louis , Beckedahl, Heinz , Le Maitre, David C , Ramsay, Lisa F
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/176598 , vital:40091 , ISBN 978-77005-633-6 , https://www.wrc.org.za/mdocs-posts/wetland-management-series-wet-origins-controls-on-the-distribution-and-dynamics-of-wetlands-in-south-africa/
- Description: The need for wetland rehabilitation in South Africa is compelling: loss and degradation of wetlands have been great and national policy and legislation provide clear direction and support for rehabilitation. However, rehabilitating wetlands is often complex because wetlands and their links with people are complex (e.g. through the ways that people use wetlands and the different benefits that people receive from the ecosystem services that wetlands supply).
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- Date Issued: 2008
WET-Roadmap:
- Authors: Dada, Rehana , Kotze, Donovan C , Ellery, William F N , Uys, Mary , Breen, Charles , Dini, John , Mitchell, Steve
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/176596 , vital:40093 , ISBN 978-1-77005-632-9 , http://www.wrc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/TT 321-07.pdf
- Description: The WET-Management Series is a set of integrated tools that can be used to guide well-informed and effective wetland management and rehabilitation. Wetland loss in South Africa has been significant and the need for wetland rehabilitation as part of good wetland stewardship and management is compelling. National policy and legislation provide clear direction and support for rehabilitation, but the very complex links between people and wetlands mean that actions aimed at sustainably rehabilitating and conserving wetlands will depend on the dedication and commitment of all stakeholders, especially landowners and wetland users.
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- Date Issued: 2007
Atlas of Southern African freshwater fishes
- Authors: Scott, L E P , Skelton, P H , Booth, A J , Verheust, L , Dooley, J , Harris, R
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Freshwater fishes -- South Africa , Freshwater fishes -- Africa, Southern , Freshwater fishes -- Africa, Southern -- Identification
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/199097 , vital:46068
- Description: Worldwide concern over the loss of biological diversity during the past decade has provided the impetus for the development of biodiversity databases and biological atlas projects in order to make information accessible. This Geographic Information Systems-based Atlas of Southern African Freshwater Fishes is the first of its kind for fishes in Africa and, as such, can be seen as contributing towards this global trend of consolidation and refining of biodiversity information. The technological advances made in computing systems over the past decade have facilitated the extraction and utilisation of much of the untapped information in museum collections. The size of most natural history collections had tended to prohibit any comprehensive applied use of the specimens on a large scale, but the computerisation of these collections has proved to be an invaluable tool to systematists, taxonomists and ecologists, by allowing faster and more efficient access to specimen record data of interest. With the automation of many biological databases, public attention has been brought to their potential contribution to biodiversity studies and conservation efforts around the world. The application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the field of southern African ichthyology and freshwater fisheries management has been limited, until now, by the lack of good-quality, comprehensive data sets, adequate budgets and GIS skills. Sophisticated investigations of fish distributions for conservation and management purposes need a powerful computing platform. This is realised in the Atlas of Southern African Freshwater Fishes, which has been tested and used for biogeographic analysis in the southern African region. The atlas was established using specimen records from nineteen museum collections, and currently contains 35145 geo-referenced specimen records, collected between 1885 and 2000 in eleven countries of southern Africa, which represent 254 fish species from 37 families. The Atlas of Southern African Freshwater Fishes was developed with the objective of being a dynamic, powerful information system. It has been constructed to allow the import of additional information at any stage, and it is designed to be as accessible and as user-friendly as current technology allows. This Atlas is the product of the successful integration of fish distributional information with other spatial data layers to provide a new tool for the study of freshwater fish in southern Africa.
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- Date Issued: 2006
Emthonjeni:
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H
- Date: 2006
- Language: isiXhosa
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/175351 , vital:42567 , ISBN 9781869285012
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- Date Issued: 2006
Reporting non-stop violence in South Africa: the necessity for adopting a different kind of journalism
- Authors: Garman, Anthea , Mbaine, Adolf
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/159702 , vital:40334 , ISBN 978-9970025367
- Description: The role of the media and media reportage is crucial to any conflict situation. In Uganda, the Department of Mass Communication at Makerere University has endeavoured to support constructive reporting of the various conflicts that have beset the country and the region in the past decades. As part of this effort, it has organised lectures and commissioned research by media professionals and academic observers, whose work is brought together in this collection of essays.
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- Date Issued: 2006
Take Me to the River:
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H
- Date: 2006
- Language: isiXhosa
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/175339 , vital:42566 , ISBN 9781869285852
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- Date Issued: 2006
The Dominion Group:
- Authors: Marsh, Julian S
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145144 , vital:38412 , ISBN 9781919908779
- Description: The Dominion Group.
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- Date Issued: 2006
The Karoo igneous province:
- Authors: Duncan, Andrew R , Marsh, Julian S
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145156 , vital:38413 , ISBN 9781919908779
- Description: The Karoo igneous province.
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- Date Issued: 2006
The Educational Journal
- Date: 2005-09
- Subjects: Education – South Africa , South Africa – Economic conditions , South Africa – Social conditions
- Language: English
- Type: Article , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/38579 , vital:34836 , Bulk File 7
- Description: The Educational Journal was the official organ of the Teachers' League of South Africa and focussed on education within the context of a racialized South Africa. From the 2000s, the journal was published by the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (NUPSAW), a trade union formed in August 1998 from the amalgamation of militant and moderate trade unions and also operated in the education sphere.
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- Date Issued: 2005-09
The basic income grant in Namibia: resource book
- Authors: Haarmann, Claudia, 1970- , Haarmann, Dirk
- Date: 2005?
- Subjects: Income maintenance programs -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/74460 , vital:30304
- Description: In recent months, the Basic Income Grant proposal has generated an overwhelming response in Namibia, and the launch of the Basic Income Grant Coalition has added further public debate. This resource book is compiled in order to inform policy makers and civil society role players about the background and the details of the proposal for a Basic Income Grant in Namibia. In addition, it provides the results of research of the social, economic and financial implications of a BIG in Namibia. The first section of the book documents the launch of the Basic Income Grant Coalition. The Council of Churches, the National Union of Namibian Workers, the National NGO Forum, the Namibian Network of AIDS Service Organisations, the Legal Assistance Centre, and the Labour, Resource and Research Institute committed themselves to the common platform on April 27th 2005. The platform of the coalition as well as the speeches at the launch of Bishop Dr. Z. Kameeta (Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELCRN) and Vice President of the Council of Churches in Namibia (CCN)), Mr. P. Naholo, Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW), and Mr. S. Tjaronda, Chairperson of the Namibian NGO Forum (NANGOF), are published in this first section. This resource book is compiled in order to inform policy makers and civil society role players about the background and the details of the proposal for a Basic Income Grant in Namibia. The second section explains the underlying concept of the Basic Income Grant. Crucial questions of understanding and clarification are addressed in order to form the basis for an informed debate about the concept. The third section introduces the key passages of the findings and recommendations made by the Government appointed Namibia Tax Consortium (NAMTAX). In 2002 the tax consortium “found that by far the best method of addressing poverty and inequality would be a universal income grant [= Basic Income Grantf (NAMTAX, 2002:60). This research is crucial as it lays the foundation on the basis of which the churches, unions, NGOs and AIDS Service organisations have now formed the coalition to join hands with Government to see that this proposal can be implemented effectively. The fourth and fifth sections provide relevant results stemming from social and economic analysis. The fourth section by Dr. C. and Dr. D. Haarmann is based on a Microsimulation Model modelling the developmental impact of a Basic Income Grant on poverty and inequality. The fifth and final section by Prof. M. Samson and Ms. I. van Niekerk calculates the costs of the Basic Income Grant and its various financing options. Based on a comparative international Tax Effort Analysis, the affordability given Namibia’s current economic capacity is assessed. This section concludes by looking at likely second round effects on Namibia’s economy if a Basic Income Grant is to be introduced.
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- Date Issued: 2005?