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Community Consultation in Risk Management
Get PDFDisaster and risk experience remain a global pandemic. The community as a vast plate of numerous stakeholders is an embodiment of the team that is capable of managing the global risk exposures. The argument is that, the immediate community plays a vital role in risk management. The study methodology used in exploring community consultations in risk management was through the triangulation of researchers’ experience and a sectoral approach which entail the convergent parallel mixed-method of community consultations. Secondary data was obtained from some selected case study community consultation programmes in risk management organised by selected risk management agencies in South-Eastern and Northern region of Nigeria. The Youth Transformational Leadership Collaborative Initiative within the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), National Youth Service Corps and the NEMA-Military Joint Task Force and the Borno State residents programme reports iterates that communities are frontline stakeholders in risk management. Case study of community disaster risk management in some Africa countries was also documented. Extensive consultations with key stakeholders coupled with a healthy sustained collaboration among the stakeholders led to improved coordination in the fight against insurgency in the communities in Borno state. It was identified that coordinated information dissemination between communities to the Task Force was an effective mechanism for community policing and risk reductions. It was identified that low level of public awareness of disaster risk, unavailability of relevant data, weak capacity and inadequate personnel, lack of political will amongst others were the challenges to community consultation in risk management in Nigeria. The study proposed community-based disaster risk management approach, which entails intensive and extensive consultation to build people’s capacity of coping with disaster risks towards creating safer and resilient communities
The Manifestation of Street Safety and Security as Spatial (in)justice in Selected Small Rural Towns of Vhembe District, South Africa
Get PDFSafe and secure street spaces for pedestrians translate to spatially just urban environments. This study examined pedestrians' safety and security elements on street spaces in three selected Small Rural Towns (SRTs) in South Africa and assessed the users' physical perceptions of street safety and security in SRTs and their implications on spatial (in)justice. Forty-three street spaces from three SRTs in South Africa were purposively sampled and assessed in this study. The study adopted a mixed-method approach involving the use of a case study and a survey. Data were collected through key informant interviews, a questionnaire survey and a street space design quality checklist. The distribution of safety and security elements across the studied 43 street spaces reflect the existence of justices and injustices concurrently. Users' theoretical perception of the meaning of street safety differs significantly from their actual experiences. The study recommends that the design and management of streets be informed by users' vision of street safety and security, as well as innovative project financing strategies to ensure spatial justice on street spaces
Patients Perceptions on Teledermatology Through Video-consulting During the Covid19-pandemic: Report on a Belgian Cohort
Get PDFObjectives: In light of the Covid19-pandemic the Belgian government announced a quarantine period. Following the imposed guidelines, UZ Leuven responded swiftly by canceling all non-urgent ambulant consultations for a period of three weeks. Later, this was prolonged to a period of three months. This setting urged implementation of telemedicine. In this pilot study, we invited patients followed in our department for inflammatory skin diseases (psoriasis and atopic dermatitis) to substitute their cancelled appointment by a video-consult. Preparation of the consultation as well as the video-consultation itself were assessed by the patient through an online questionnaire.
Material and methods: A live-interaction teledermatology service was offered by email to patients in follow-up for inflammatory skin diseases who had an appointment scheduled that was cancelled because of the Covid19-pandemic. Patients who accepted the invitation received instructions on how to prepare for the video-consultation. After the video-consultation they received a link to an anonymous online questionnaire.
Results: In total, 100 patients received an invitation by email to replace the cancelled appointment by a video-consultation. 42 patients agreed to participate in video-consultation. The questionnaire was completed by 30 patients. Overall, patients did not report technical difficulties before or during the video-consultation. Satisfaction with the video-consult was high. Most of the participants were inclined to accept another invitation in the future.
Conclusion: The Covid19 pandemic prompted rapid implementation of video-consultation in the UZ Leuven dermatology department. It was assessed as an acceptable replacement given the circumstances. Most patients estimated the visual support an added value and were open to repeat video-consulting in the future
Socio-Environmental Effects of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Depot, Apata, Ibadan on the Adjoining Neighbourhoods
Get PDFNigeria, one of the major crude oil producing countries in the world, transports petroleum products through pipelines to several oil depots located across the country from where it is trucked to end users. Activities within these depots are known to have impact on their immediate environment due to the nature of operations and the externalities generated. This paper therefore examined the socio-environmental effects of the Nigerian National Petroleum Depot, Apata, Ibadan on its immediate neighbourhood. A case study approach utilising primary and secondary data collection was adopted in which 205 residential buildings and respondents were proportionally selected for sampling from four neighbourhoods within 500 metres radius of the facility. An environmental audit including ground water samples were randomly collected for testing and analysis from Adebisi stream and residential hand-dug wells. Findings revealed local access road incapacitation emanating from indiscriminate parking of fuel tankers and spiralling into constant traffic congestion on major roads. Desludging of fuel storage tanks (79.5%) resulting into regular effluent discharge into the Adebisi stream and fume emission (62.6%), were attested to by residents. Water quality analysis revealed a high concentration of lead (pb.0.06mg/l) above the maximum permissible limit of (0.01mg/l) for potable water. Other detected metals, Cadmium (0.003mg/l), Copper (0.006mg/l) and Zinc (3.0 mg/l) were all within the appropriate recommended limits. The study recommended a periodic environmental audit and regular dialogue with stakeholders of the host communities for socio-environmental sustainability
A comparative study of knowledge, beliefs, and opportunities to learn afforded to physical science B.Ed students
Get PDFLarge-scale studies show country and institutional differences in the preparation of pre-service teachers. Subsequently, there is growing interest in the determination of the opportunities-to-learn afforded to pre-service teachers at various universities and the effects thereof in South Africa and elsewhere. There are however few studies that provide a contextually nuanced view of the effects of teacher education on pre-service teachers. This study therefore compares opportunities-to-learn afforded to pre-service teachers and their levels of competence i.e. knowledge and beliefs at four universities in South Africa. Quantitative analysis reveals that some universities afforded pre-service teachers more opportunities-to-learn in agreement with the nature of the universities. Furthermore, some opportunities-to-learn afforded to pre-service teachers are related to beliefs measures but they are not related to knowledge measures. The findings suggest while the pre-service teachers seem to be afforded sufficient opportunities-to-learn at some universities, this does not readily translate into higher levels of competence
Aligning with feminism: Critical autoethnographic reflections of a profeminist heterosexual male teacher educator
Get PDFAbstractIn the last two decades, education scholarship has made significant progress in advancing the feminist social justice agenda and female scholars have almost entirely been the drivers of this impetus. Female scholars in teacher education have been successful in establishing and consolidating this disciplinary field of study quite firmly in the teacher education curriculum. Despite this, multiple forms of gender oppression including gender-based violence continue to plague South African universities and society in general. There is a distinct concern that men have been relatively silent and inactive in this social justice project. There is also limited extant scholarship that speaks to the role that profeminist men might play in this social justice enterprise. There is also a dearth of understanding of the level of sophistication with which men understand feminism, which feminisms men might align themselves with and the accountability and responsibility that might come with assuming certain positions. In this critical, autoethnographic piece, I engage the questions as to how critical pedagogical encounters might serve as disruptive device in an attempt to trouble reified gendered socialisations. I draw on my experiences as teacher educator as I struggle to locate and identify my own profeminist positionality and the tensions that present. I contemplate the poststructuralist caution about the tension of writing (my)self into text given that the writing self is an evolving/changing self. I reflect on my attempt to disrupt banality and oblivion as I contemplate the prospect of self-disclosure as point of entry for profeminist men’s praxis in a teacher education programme subscribed to by young men (and women) steeply socialised in a patriarchal history and culture
Using Bernstein to analyse primary maths teachers’ positions and identities in the context of national standardised assessment: the case of the ANAs
Get PDFThis paper is informed by Bernstein’s notion of pedagogic identity and Morgan’s (Morgan,1998, Morgan, Tsatsaroni and Lerman , 2002) study of mathematics teachers’ orientationsin assessment practice. These are used to identify primary maths teachers’ positions andidentities in the current South African education context characterised by an emphasis onmonitoring through standardised national learner tests. The paper draws on data obtainedfrom interactive interviews with nine sampled primary maths teachers who wereparticipants in a numeracy in-service education community of practice. Using Bernstein’sfour pedagogic identity classes and relating these to Morgan’s maths teachers’ orientationswe identify primary maths positions being taken up by the sampled teachers in relation tothe Annual National Assessment (ANA) tests. The research indicates that most of theprimary maths teachers’ say that their practices are being influenced by the ANAs, althoughin different ways. We finally propose that primary maths teachers need to develop ways to‘critically align’ their practices to national policies so as to maintain some agency whilealigning with policy
Harry Potter and the Critical gaze: Autonomy pathways in literary response writing
Get PDFThis study investigates knowledge-building in student writing from a critical literary response unit in an 8th grade English language arts (ELA) classroom in the southeastern United States. This paper offers a detailed analysis of an exemplary essay in the data set, using concepts from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to explore the extent to which the student writing related to the targeted content and purpose of the task. The analysis uses concepts from the dimension of Autonomy to describe the ways student writers brought together information from the literary texts and from beyond the prompt and source texts to support their interpretations of the characters. The findings offer a means for understanding the ways different pathways can support students in recognizing and realizing the dispositions towards the texts and to broader cultural issues in ways that align with disciplinary literacy practices.