The Impact of Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) on Sustainable Livelihoods in Rural Communities

This study sought to assess the impact of savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) on rural sustainable livelihoods using the case of Nekatambe Ward 13 in Hwange district of Matabeleland North province in Zimbabwe. The study adopted a qualitative approach and a descriptive research design which were consistent with the research problem. Using convenience and purposive sampling, local leaders, non-governmental organisation (NGO) officials and members of the existing SACCOs were selected as respondents. The major findings were that SACCOs played a significant role in sustaining rural livelihoods particularly through enabling members to fend for themselves and their families. In addition, NGOs helped cooperatives through capacitating members with knowledge and technical skills and that SACCOs impacted positively on sustaining rural livelihoods. However, quite a number of challenges are associated with SACCOs in their bit to sustain rural livelihoods; with the major ones being failure to recover loans, competition from more established cooperatives, lack of start-up capital, poor financial and managerial skills and the general national economic meltdown. From the study findings, the researchers concluded that, despite the challenges associated with SACCOs, their existence under members’ resilience, has generally improved the lives of people in rural communities to generate employment, boost food production, send their children to school and empower the marginalized among other positive developments. Accordingly, the researchers recommend that SACCOs should diversify their operations and invest in fixed assets in order to curtail challenges and make lucrative benefits that can sustain their families and communities. On the other hand, the government and other concerned stakeholders should support SACCOs in order to alleviate the possible challenges that cripple them in their bid to promote rural livelihood sustainability.

The Role of Social Capital in the Creation of Family-Owned Smes Empirical Study by Entrepreneurs Sfax Region

Entrepreneurship has widely studied the importance of the entrepreneur’s social capital in the acquisition of external resources, notably financial and informational resources, to lannch a business. This relational capital is often influenced by factors related to family and professional experience. In this sense, we provide an in-depth study of the development and amplification of relational capital of a project carrier in order to analyze how a network of entrepreneurial relationships could be equipped with the necessary means for the radiation of its company. This present work aims at exploring the distinctive elements of the family business’s social capital.In fact, a qualitative exploratory study was conducted with reference out to nine entrepreneurs in order to highlight these key points.

Elective Affinities in the Anthropocene: Christianity and the Natural Environment Reconsidered

To reach a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between religion and the natural environment, it is important to move beyond essentializing any religious tradition as having a pro-environmental or anti-environmental ethic. Rather, prior work has shown that the canonical, scholarly, and popular literatures and discourse of a number of religious traditions can and have been socially and rhetorically constructed as supporting an array of positions, from preservation to profligacy, and much in between those two ideal types. In this paper, we develop Max Weber’s theory of “elective affinities” and adapt it to the Anthropocene, to make the case that in a fragmented society, people and communities of convenience tend to choose the tropes and framing from the dominant culture to justify self-interested action. That often can take the form of religious discourse. In the sense of finding a wide array of practical interpretations relative to the environment, the theory is largely supported, although we do find important nuances. It is instructive to look at how the language and legitimacy of one institution (e.g. religion) has been used to justify and legitimate that of others (e.g. the polity). While these processes of institutional co-optation can be effective in the short run, they may have corrosive longer-term effects. Key rhetorical, and in fact political, battles in the Third Millennium, will likely be organized around how to adapt pre-industrial religion to late industrial and perhaps post-industrial times, and it remains to see how central the natural environment will be in what communities hold sacred.

A Precis on How Democracies Die as a Consequence of America’s, Failure of Government Working for the People while Serving the Interests of the Wealthy

This precis speaks to the failure of the United States government to sustain the wealth of the middle-class after the post-World War Two years’, while serving the wealthiest Americans. It will document how the country has become polarized and fractured along ideological and cultural lines. This situation has created a segmentation of the country that has competing visions, purpose and meaning which is tearing it apart.It will also focus on the inequality in the country that has emerged from the Oligarchy’s domination of the political and free market space-government of the 1%, by the 1% AND FOR THE 1%. Their mantra is to keep the government out of business and have business in the government.

A Decision Making Context

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Public Policy or Government Programs? Are a Contribution to the Inclusion in Chile?

Given the importance of Public Policies for social transformation, the document explains why and under what circumstances they constitute a decisive factor to promote or inhibit social transformation. A policy is a purposeful, intentional, planned behavior, not just reactive, casual. It is set in motion with the decision to achieve certain objectives through certain means: it is an action with meaning. It is a process, a course of action that involves a whole complex set of decisions and operators.Politics is also a public communication activity. Hence, the purpose of this article is s be a guide in the understanding and analysis of what is meant by Public Policies, as well as contributing to the understanding of the mechanisms for their design and elaboration. That they have a clear and simple idea of what Public Policies are in a generalized context and the steps that must be carried out to implement them.

Otherness and Schizophrenia

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Schizophrenia, Maslow and Coping Strategies

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Delusions, Maslows Hierarchy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

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Impacts of Microfinance Activities on Social Capital Development Regarding the Relationships between Members of Village Savings and Loans Associations

The study indicated impact of microfinance activities with Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) to community’s social capital development. Based on the responds of 356 members have been participating in the VSLAs (questionnaire and in-depth interviews), there has been a progression in social capital regarding members’ relationships proving the changes in members and their social relationship as well as the trust among them after joining the VSLAs. One of the unique and significant findings was the different ways and levels of trust among the members. The important of this finding is it emphasized how the social impact can effectively benefit the subjects of social welfare policies. The study also proposed solutions to promote the activities of VSLAs and develop social toward sustainable community development