This article laments the exclusion of small, local communities, voices and visions, from participating in making the city. It makes a case for ‘small communities’ practising resistance and reconstruction in multiple ways and places. Instead of viewing such actions as naïve or a-political, it calls for an understanding of such practices as alternatives to ‘top-down’..
Read more2019 Report – Urban Studio: Healing Urban Fractures
This report describes the work of the Urban Studio, a collaborative project initiated between the Centre for Faith and Community at the University of Pretoria, and the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, committed – through deep immersions – to contribute to the healing of urban fractures, through:- Building leadership (capacity-building and education),- Doing engaged research- Documenting local..
Read moreMultidisciplinary meetings: Listening to the experiences of children in a child and youth care centre
Adults for good reason agree that children should be protected at all times. However, in their attempts to help children who are vulnerable, adults should be cautious of cultivating a one-sided and reduced view of children and of their needs and rights. In the context of child protection, such a one-sided perspective limits the capabilities..
Read moreAdolescent girls’ voices on their need for sexuality education: A cry for mutual sexual emancipation
‘Teachers expect parents to teach you. Parents expect teachers to teach you. So actually you learn nothing and nobody wants to talk about it’. This quote from this research study is an adolescent girls’ cry for liberation from the silence related to sexuality because of the general reluctance of adults to talk to them about..
Read moreAn integrated African pastoral care approach to unaccompanied refugee minors based on Verryn’s Child interventions
The African proverb ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ has been compromised and exposed by the migration of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URMs) from Zimbabwe to South Africa. Written from African women’s perspective, this article explores the response and approach of Bishop Paul Verryn to URMs. The article theologises Verryn’s response to URMs in..
Read moreEngaging children as ‘agents of change’: The Grahamstown Scout Group
This article, as a narrative, offers a ‘learning journey’ of the Grahamstown Scout Group, and reveals how ‘the child’s right to participation’ (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC 1989) is actualised in the life and workings of this group. The methodology used by the facilitator of the Scout Group explores different..
Read moreDoing theology with children through multimodal narrativity
Doing theology with children, in a systematic and focused way, is a new practice. This article contributes to this theological practice by examining its emergence, nature and mission and proposing multimodal narrativity as a practical theological methodology for doing such theology. The article argues, from a practical theological standpoint, that doing theology with children should..
Read moreDoing theology with children: Some challenges for adult theologians
Doing theology with children, which includes children as equal participants in the process, is no easy task. Adult theologians face many challenges in becoming involved in doing theology with children. The probing question is: What are these challenges? This article identifies and discusses a few of them. It does not provide an exhaustive list, nor..
Read moreResearch with children as theologians: Ethical and methodological issues
In this article, I explain why it is important for theologians to involve children in empirical research, and why children themselves can and should be considered as ‘theologians’. Therefore, I refer to theories in childhood studies and child theology (children as active participants and subjects), and also to contemporary trends in empirical research and practical..
Read moreTowards emancipatory research methodologies with children in the African context: Practical possibilities and overcoming challenges
Despite having international and national legislative frameworks and policies that guarantee children’s rights and encourage their participation in matters affecting them, consulting children has received scant scholarly attention in the African context. Notwithstanding this state of affairs, it is important to ask whether, in keeping with growing progressive practices, having children as active researchers is..
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