When Science Becomes Relevant

This chapter explores the use of indigenous knowledge for empowerment purposes. The White Angels Yoghurt and Dairy business in Molepolole, a wholly women owned business relied on indigenous knowledge of science with no formal scientific school background. The owners of this business have low education; they stay in a rural area and are poor. Their efforts are noteworthy as a symbol of women's empowerment that has relied on indigenous knowledge of milk pasteurisation and sweetening, a cultural tradition that Batswana have practiced for years. Their business has also demonstrated that combining indigenous knowledge with the current scientific and technological know-how can sustain and yield more gains for the business. Empowerment here can thus be defined as the ability to combine local/indigenous resources and current scientific knowledge and technologies to propel success and more gains from an empowerment project.

Triple A Leadership Dynamics of a Self-Empowering Women Group

From the Triple A Leadership model, this chapter shares a story of four women who gained economic empowerment through a bakery project whose success can be attributed to the application of the three tenets of this model, namely; accountable, attitude and approach. The first A denotes that ‘Accountability' is an indispensable aspect of leadership while ‘Attitude' is the other basic element. The theory further highlights that ‘approach' is fundamental to good leadership. The four women displayed self-reinforcing attitude that gave rise to increased interest in the project resulting in self- empowerment. It is clear that when people' personalities display leadership skills such as awareness of individual differences, responsibility, conflict resolution, tensions can be avoided as was the case with women who owned the bakery. In reality different situations call for different leadership styles, different actions, different strategies and this case illustrates that Triple A leadership was the appropriate approach.

Empowerment through Elegant Designs

This chapter illustrates that self-empowerment cannot be achieved with strong doubts about capability or confidence. Rather, self-initiative is facilitated by ‘power-within' that is, self-acceptance and self-confidence or the ‘Yes-I-can-do-it' attitude. Having being laid off at work, women in this case started their own business of making elegant bags using skills they gained from the company that laid them off. These women were creative and had the right skills to make elegant bags. They also employed the right processes, structures and rationalities for the project to succeed. In sum, this chapter demonstrates that empowerment would not be effected in a vacuum; it always has to be backed up by policies, processes and rationalities for capacity-building, funding and other factors that can defeat project sustainability and success.

I Stand with Henry

This study investigates a virtual ad-hoc organization known as “I Stand With Henry” (ISWH). It features an individual middle school student with autism practicing self-advocacy. His mission is to support inclusion and get his school district to sanction his ability to be included in the general education setting instead of a separate school for students with special needs. While ISWH is not an official not-for-profit organization, is performs similar functions. Through an in-depth analysis of the ISWH Facebook page, virtual ad-hoc organizations redefine what it means to be a not-for-profit organization. This study analyzes how social media gives voice to the voiceless and how social media equalizes marginalized voices for all students with disabilities to exercise their rights. The chapter employs analyzes conversations within a single case to construct a virtual advocacy model that explains the success of ISWH.

The Crossroads that Were Never Meant to Be

Today's world faces challenges of increased number of orphans. In Botswana, HIV/AIDS scourge widens figures and poverty increases vulnerability. Beyond existing empowerment supporting schemes, and policies, orphans are responsible for complementing government's efforts. In this chapter, the orphan had hoped for economic empowerment through his old barber shop. His hope was drowned when he got a kiosk instead of barber equipment. The kiosk in his yard stands as a promise of government support, on the other hand, it is a symbol of no voice and choice over improvement of his future life. Challenges to improvement include government's prescriptive procedures and bureaucracy. These challenges have in turn created self-doubt, bitterness and a feeling of betrayal on his part. This chapter illustrates that for empowerment strategies to succeed, there should be synergy between beneficiaries' needs and government support. Monitoring too is an essential part of successful practices.

A Narrative Description of Disclosing Sensitive Information to Empower an HIV/AIDS Infected or Affected Child

Failure to disclose sensitive information to a child is a source of emotional trauma. The consequences include inability to respond to life challenges and impaired productivity. In this case, concealing sensitive information is a form of disempowerment that can result in poor adherence to therapy and resistance to the use of existing support systems. Disempowerment is displayed through disruptive behaviour, low self-esteem, and inability to make constructive decisions. This behaviour flourishes within traditional cultures in which disclosure of sensitive information to a child is considered a taboo in the pretext of protecting the child from emotional pain. Contrary to this view, it is demonstrated in this chapter that disclosure can be empowering. It can lead to self-acceptance and positive thinking that will enable a client to approach life with a positive attitude, and willingness to learn and succeed. Evidently, the child in this chapter demonstrated normal processes of child development, appreciated parental advice, and behaved more responsibly following disclosure of his and his parent's positive HIV status.

Visible Barriers to Economic Empowerment

This chapter presents some barriers to grassroots empowerment; namely, when government prescriptive approaches take precedence over the felt needs of those to be empowered; empowerment projects are likely to fail. This chapter demonstrates that poverty reduction strategies left to the decisions of the government promote the use of one-size-fit-all approaches that cannot work for all. Empowerment is possible only to the extent that strategies and priorities are tailored to clients' needs. These needs can be effectively addressed when the grassroots work in close partnership with development partners in defining suitable projects and support systems. The model of empowerment presented in this chapter recognizes that welfare approach becomes more distasteful when people who can rely on their natural talents like the Serowe Wood Carvers are denied support to use these talents and hence forced to depend on the welfare schemes.

Recreating Tokelau

This chapter discusses a specific grassroots initiative of an economically disadvantaged Pacific Island community from Tokelau who has been displaced to New Zealand. To retain their island culture, community members sought to develop a centre as a source of their empowerment, one which would ‘capture the essence of a Tokelau village'. They invited the School of Architecture at the University of Wellington to assist with its development. The guiding principles of this empowerment project are grassroots participation, mutual decision-making and shared implementation. The application of these principles is particularly befitting to participatory design methods. Despite some challenges, a number of benefits from this community's project can be cited. These include the strengthening of their sense of community, preservation of aspects of culture and a collective shared vision for the future. The fundamental idea here is that communities need to be able to seek, and receive help that empowers them rather than being offered potentially subsuming interventions. This was achieved through the development of trust between the university research team and the members of the Tokelau community. The opportunity for the university students and the Tokelau youth to engage and learn from each other were part of unanticipated additional outcomes.

Women Entrepreneurs Address Poverty and Social Change through Empowering Grassroots Initiatives in Tanzania

This chapter investigates the story of Jitahidi women in Tanzania to understand the dynamics of empowerment at the grassroots level. The stories chronicled in this chapter present self-reliance events, motivations, and practical initiatives of a small entrepreneurial group of women, organized with shoe-string budgets. Their goal was to establish a women's collective strength that could unleash women's lives from oppressive economic regimes, patriarchal traditions, gender inequality, gender discrimination, and socio-historical legacies that exploit women everywhere. The study revealed that dialogical way of thinking and underlying conventions wrapped-up in Women in Development activities in Tanzania were critical in providing the vision that guided the Jitahidi group to create a space for transformation and potential to empower women so as to define their own educational needs and create political organizations within the local community.

‘Net' Social Change

The notion of empowerment broadly refers to the ability of actors to fulfil their missions. However, assessing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) specific contributions to this remains an exigent task in the context of grassroots organizations. The objective of this chapter is to analyse the differences in levels of empowerment between ICT adopters and non-adopters Grassroots Environmental Organizations (GEOs) in Perth, Western Australia. The chapter draws on organizational empowerment theory and proposes an evaluation framework to assess ICT-mediated empowerment for sustainable development. Utilizing a survey of GEOs and interviews with leaders, the chapter unravels the contributions of ICTs in enabling these grassroots actors. The chapter ends with the discussion on the need for overcoming digital divide and recommends strategic support for GEOs that are either not able to or not willing to keep up with the emerging trend of ICTs.