Social assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic – first comments related to practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Beata Mańkowska

The purpose of the article is to draw attention to the challenges and threats faced by social assistance institutions in the face of the second month of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, with particular emphasis on disturbing phenomena and behaviours involving employees of these institutions. The text, on the one hand, supported by examples derived from personal experiences and reports of the social workers themselves, on the other, by the author's observations and reflections, can serve as a warning against hasty, chaotic actions undermining the morale and reputation of the social assistance system. In the current particularly difficult time for all, it should pass the test in responsible management, coherent cooperation, developing effective solutions and missionary character – serving the ones in need.

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-71
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Wojtanowicz ◽  
Adam Białas

Today’s complex social situation, pandemic and isolation place demands on the social assistance system. Society is experiencing a number of difficulties and identifies the needs that social workers have to face. Support for overcoming this crisis requires a new approach. Strengthen methods and tools for preventive and interventional work. The article shows the context of social intervention work and the organisational requirements for the social assistance system. It also draws attention to the problems experienced and the needs identified by clients benefiting from the support of the crisis intervention centre.


2021 ◽  
Vol specjalny (XXI) ◽  
pp. 331-347
Author(s):  
Wiesław Koczur

This article presents – in the context of the evolution of the Polish public social assistance system – the genesis and shaping of the personnel of this system, with particular emphasis on the place and role of social workers in this system. Attention was drawn to the direction of the evolution of the personnel of the Polish social assistance system: from the honorary activities of social workers in the times of the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939), through a mixed model of full-time social workers supported by a network of socially active local social workers in the times of the Polish People’s Republic, to professional social service, performing the regulated profession of a social worker in modern times. It also indicated how social workers were perceived in different periods of the evolution of the social welfare system and how the regulations of their legal status were assessed


PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (5) ◽  
pp. 1548-1551
Author(s):  
Godwin Siundu

I Have Taught Literature at the University Of Nairobi Since 2009. Previously, I Taught at Masinde Muliro University and at Moi University. From my experience at the three universities, I can trace, in hindsight, two dominant influences on my knowledge of literature and expectations of how it ought to be conceived and taught. First is my graduate training at Moi University, in Kenya, and at the University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa, where I was encouraged to see literature as a broad discipline that speaks to others in the humanities and in the social and natural sciences in terms of concerns, research methodology, and, especially, analytic tools. The second influence is the academic composition and orientation of the literature departments, as shaped by the politics of development. In the face of two competing forces—on the one hand, the Kenyan government and its preoccupation with development as an ideal and a pretext for de-emphasizing the teaching of some humanities disciplines and, on the other, the neoliberal political economy that gave rise to nongovernmental organizations' setting the scholarship research agenda in Kenya—literary academics seemed to be torn three ways: using the discipline and their knowledge of it to position themselves for government appointments, pursuing nongovernmental-organizations-funded research, or continuing to teach literature in the ways that they know. Those who chose the third option were also equipped with an institutional memory of the discipline as they were taught, the department, and its practices. Because, of these three groups, I have interacted the most with members of the third, my reflections here focus on them exclusively.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-291
Author(s):  
Manuel A. Vasquez ◽  
Anna L. Peterson

In this article, we explore the debates surrounding the proposed canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero, an outspoken defender of human rights and the poor during the civil war in El Salvador, who was assassinated in March 1980 by paramilitary death squads while saying Mass. More specifically, we examine the tension between, on the one hand, local and popular understandings of Romero’s life and legacy and, on the other hand, transnational and institutional interpretations. We argue that the reluctance of the Vatican to advance Romero’s canonization process has to do with the need to domesticate and “privatize” his image. This depoliticization of Romero’s work and teachings is a part of a larger agenda of neo-Romanization, an attempt by the Holy See to redeploy a post-colonial and transnational Catholic regime in the face of the crisis of modernity and the advent of postmodern relativism. This redeployment is based on the control of local religious expressions, particularly those that advocate for a more participatory church, which have proliferated with contemporary globalization


Trictrac ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petru Adrian Danciu

Starting from the cry of the seraphim in Isaiahʹ s prophecy, this article aims to follow the rhythm of the sacred harmony, transcending the symbols of the angelic world and of the divine names, to get to the face to face meeting between man and God, just as the seraphim, reflecting their existence, stand face to face. The finality of the sacred harmony is that, during the search for God inside the human being, He reveals Himself, which is the reason for the affirmation of “I Am that I Am.” Through its hypnotic cyclicality, the profane temporality has its own musicality. Its purpose is to incubate the unsuspected potencies of the beings “caught” in the material world. Due to the fact that it belongs to the aeonic time, the divine music will exceed in harmony the mechanical musicality of profane time, dilating and temporarily cancelling it. Isaiah is witness to such revelation offering access to the heavenly concert. He is witness to divine harmonies produced by two divine singers, whose musical history is presented in our article. The seraphim accompanied the chosen people after their exodus from Egypt. The cultic use of the trumpet is related to the characteristics and behaviour of the seraphim. The seraphic music does not belong to the Creator, but its lyrics speak about the presence of the Creator in two realities, a spiritual and a material one. Only the transcendence of the divine names that are sung/cried affirms a unique reality: God. The chant-cry is a divine invocation with a double aim. On the one hand, the angels and the people affirm God’s presence and call His name and, on the other, the Creator affirms His presence through the angels or in man, the one who is His image and His likeness. The divine music does not only create, it is also a means of communion, implementing the relation of man to God and, thus, God’s connection with man. It is a relation in which both filiation and paternity disappear inside the harmony of the mutual recognition produced by music, a reality much older than Adam’s language.


Imbizo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Epongse Nkealah ◽  
Olutoba Gboyega Oluwasuji

Ideas of nationalisms as masculine projects dominate literary texts by African male writers. The texts mirror the ways in which gender differentiation sanctions nationalist discourses and in turn how nationalist discourses reinforce gender hierarchies. This article draws on theoretical insights from the work of Anne McClintock and Elleke Boehmer to analyse two plays: Zintgraff and the Battle of Mankon by Bole Butake and Gilbert Doho and Hard Choice by Sunnie Ododo. The article argues that women are represented in these two plays as having an ambiguous relationship to nationalism. On the one hand, women are seen actively changing the face of politics in their societies, but on the other hand, the means by which they do so reduces them to stereotypes of their gender.


2018 ◽  
pp. 13-38
Author(s):  
N. Ceramella

The article considers two versions of D. H. Lawrence’s essay The Theatre: the one which appeared in the English Review in September 1913 and the other one which Lawrence published in his first travel book Twilight in Italy (1916). The latter, considerably revised and expanded, contains a number of new observations and gives a more detailed account of Lawrence’s ideas.Lawrence brings to life the atmosphere inside and outside the theatre in Gargnano, presenting vividly the social structure of this small northern Italian town. He depicts the theatre as a multi-storey stage, combining the interpretation of the plays by Shakespeare, D’Annunzio and Ibsen with psychological portraits of the actors and a presentation of the spectators and their responses to the plays as distinct social groups.Lawrence’s views on the theatre are contextualised by his insights into cinema and its growing popularity.What makes this research original is the fact that it offers a new perspective, aiming to illustrate the social situation inside and outside the theatre whichLawrenceobserved. The author uses the material that has never been published or discussed before such as the handwritten lists of box-holders in Gargnano Theatre, which was offered to Lawrence and his wife Frieda by Mr. Pietro Comboni, and the photographs of the box-panels that decorated the theatre inLawrence’s time.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riikka Nissi ◽  
Melisa Stevanovic

Abstract The article examines how the aspects of the social world are enacted in a theater play. The data come from a videotaped performance of a professional theater, portraying a story about a workplace organization going through a personnel training program. The aim of the study is to show how the core theme of the play – the teaming up of the personnel – is constructed in the live performance through a range of interactional means. By focusing on four core episodes of the play, the study on the one hand points out to the multiple changes taking place both within and between the different episodes of the play. On the other hand, the episodes of collective action involving the semiotic resources of singing and dancing are shown to represent the ideals of teamwork in distinct ways. The study contributes to the understanding of socially and politically oriented theater as a distinct, pre-rehearsed social setting and the means and practices that it deploys when enacting the aspects of the contemporary societal issues.


1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.


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