Organisational resilience following the Darfield earthquake of 2010

This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study on the resilience and recovery of organisations following the Darfield earthquake in New Zealand on 4 September 2010. Sampling included organisations proximal and distal to the fault trace, organisations located within central business districts, and organisations from seven diverse industry sectors. The research captured information on the challenges to, the impacts on, and the reflections of the organisations in the first months of recovery. Organisations in central business districts and in the hospitality sector were most likely to close while organisations that had perishable stock and livestock were more heavily reliant on critical services. Staff well-being, cash flow, and customer loss were major concerns for organisations across all sectors. For all organisations, the most helpful factors in mitigating the effects of the earthquake to be their relationship with staff, the design and type of buildings, and critical service continuity or swift reinstatement of services

Understanding education policies from formulation to implementation. The case of inclusive education in selected secondary schools in Malawi

Sammendrag: Bakgrunn: Utbredelsen av funksjonshemninger som kan påvirke læring er høy i lavinntektsland som Malawi, og elever i videregående skoler er i flertall. Med bruk av både Spesialpedagogikk i 1981, og Inkluderende utdanning i 1994 i Malawi, har skolemiljøet blitt den viktigste settingen der utfordringer barn med funksjonshemminger møte er adressert av vårt samfunn og skoler generelt. Utdanning innen spesialpedagogikk i Malawi anses nå som diskriminerende siden studenter med en akutt funksjonshemming er plassert sammen i ett og samme skolemiljø. Disse skolene er skoler for blinde, eller døve. Disse skolene eksisterer fortsatt i Malawi på grunn av sprekker i IE-politikken rammeverket i seg selv, utilstrekkelighet eller mangel på lærerutdanning i IE, og mangel på riktige ressurser og infrastruktur i de vanlige skolene for å inkludere elever med nedsatt funksjonsevne. Men den nåværende regjeringspolitikken er å integrere alle elever med milde og akutte funksjonshemninger i den vanlige skoler med formål å bedre inkludering og samfunnsaksept. Det er verdt å notere seg selv om inkluderende opplæring for elever med både milde og akutte funksjonshemninger i vanlige skoler er forbundet med overbelastning på lærer. Byrden kan likegodt strekke seg til resten av elevene uten bemerkelsesverdige funksjonshemninger som det påvirker tempoet i deres læring og bekvemmelighet. Det er imidlertid lite forskning i utviklingsland som tar for seg lærernes utfordringer angående IE. Data om utfordringer som ulike barnefunksjonshemninger utgjør for lærere i forhold til IE i Malawi mangler. Denne studien undersøkte derfor utfordringene som ble opplevd av lærere som implementerer inkluderende opplæring i malawiske landlige og urbane videregående skoler, gjeldende juridiske og politiske rammeverk fulgte, og utforsket strategier for å håndtere utfordringer, og hva slags politisk rammeverk og materiell støtte som trengs fremover. Metode: Kvalitativ fenomenologisk design ble brukt for å fastslå hvordan lærere for elever medfunksjonshemninger forstår rammeverket for inkluderingsutdanning og hvordan de takler å undervise slike elever i malawiske videregående skoler. Data ble samlet inn fra 11 lærere fra deutvalgte skolene. Alle de elleve lærerne indikerte å ha barn med kjente psykiske lidelser. 6 haddebarn med synshemming og 4 hadde barn med hørselshemmede. Etiske studieprosedyrer ble overholdt. Spørreskjemaer, halvstrukturerte intervjuer, og deltakerobservasjoner ble gjennomført i skolemiljøer. Intervjuene ble tape innspilt, transkribert og oversatt fra Chichewa til engelsk for de lærerne som uttrykte andre tanker i deres morsmål. Notater ble tatt under observasjoner og intervjuer. Tematisk tilnærming til dataanalyse ble vedtatt for å forstå dataene og lære av det. Resultater: Undervisning av barn med fysiske funksjonshemninger er preget av lærerbelastning. Det er også mangel på ressurser, utstyr og praktisk infrastruktur for elevenes instruksjon, mobilitet og bekvemmelighet. Det elevene selv også står overfor er en stor diskriminering fra sine kamerater, andre lærere, skolesamfunnet og samfunnet som helhet. Lærere derfor bruke mer tid til de ufaglige behov de elevene har på skolen, og er frustrert over statens absolutte forsømmelse av inkluderende opplæringsbehov som resulterer i en unødvendig lærer belastning. Siden disse elevene møter stigmatisering og diskriminering både innenfra og utenfor skolene gjør det arbeidet enda vanskeligere for læreren. For å takle utfordringer, må lærer finne på nye ferdigheter, se etter ekstern støtte og søker etter differensierte instruksjonsteknikker for å hjelpe elevene med funksjonsnedsetteninger. Lærere bruker utbedring, dypere studentengasjement, en-til-en student engasjement, leksjoner, differensiertundervisning, støtte fra elever med milde eller ingen funksjonshemninger, og mye repetisjon for å sikre at læring faktisk skjer. For det andre indikerte alle lærerne som ble intervjuet fra de to skolene at de ikke hadde mottatt spesialopplæring for inkluderende opplæring, med unntak av noen som hørte om det på universitet som en del av spesialpedagogikk kurs. Lærerne mangler derfor teknisk kunnskap for håndtering av klasserom bestående av en rekke elever som inkluderer elever med nedsatt funksjonsevne, for eksempel læringsforstyrrelser, syns- og hørselshemmede. For det tredje viser analyser også at videregående skoler på landsbygda er mer vanskeligstilte sammenlignet med de i urbane omgivelser angående implementering av IE-retningslinjer, opplæringsmuligheter, fasiliteter og tilgjengelighet til ressurser. Det pågår en kritisk debatt om IE i Malawi faktisk er realistisk der elever med akutte funksjonshemninger plasseres sammen med sine "normale" kamerater i samme klasserom med svært begrensede ressurser. Student - lærerforholdet er gjennomsnitt på over 60:1, med kritiske mangler på undervisnings- og læringsmateriell som lærebøker, høreapparater eller visuelle hjelpemidlerAbstract Background: The prevalence of disabilities that impinge on learning is high in low-income countries like Malawi, and secondary school age children are in the majority. With the advent of both Special Needs Education (SNE) in 1981, and Inclusive Education (IE) in 1994 in Malawi, the school environment has become the prime setting where challenges faced by children with disabilities are addressed by our society in general and schools in particular. Special Needs Education in Malawi is now considered a bit discriminatory since students with a particular acute disability are placed together in one school environment. These schools are such as schools for the blind, or schools for the deaf. These schools still exist in Malawi due to fissures in IE policy framework itself, inadequate or lack of teacher training in IE, and lack of proper resources and infrastructure in the mainstream schools to include learners with disabilities. However, the current government policy is to integrate all learners with mild and acute disabilities into the mainstreameducation for purposes of better inclusiveness and societal acceptance.It is worth noting though that Inclusive Education for learners with both mild and acute disabilities in mainstream schools is associated with teacher overburdening. The burden might as well extend to the rest of the learners without notable disabilities as it affects the pace of their learning and convenience. However, there is little research in developing countries addressing teachers’ challenges regarding IE. Data on challenges posed by disparate child disabilities to teachers leading to IE in Malawi is lacking. This study therefore investigated the challenges experienced by teachers implementing Inclusive Education in Malawian rural and urban secondary schools, the current legal and policy framework followed, and explored strategies for coping with the challenges, and the kind of policy framework and material support needed moving forward. Method: Qualitative phenomenological design was applied to establish how teachers helpinglearners with physical disabilities comprehend the Inclusion Education policy framework and how they cope with teaching such learners in Malawian secondary schools. Data were collected from 11 teachers from the selected schools. All the eleven teachers indicated to have children with notable learning mental disorders, 6 had children with visual impairment and 4 had children with hearing impairment. Ethical study procedures were adhered to. Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and participant observations were conducted in school environments. Interviews were tape recorded, transcribed and translated from Chichewa to English for those teachers who expressed other thoughts in their vernacular language. Notes were taken during observations and interviews. Thematic approach of data analysis was adopted to understand the data and learn from it. Results: Teaching children with physical disabilities is concomitant with teacher burden. Teachers lack resources, equipment and convenient infrastructure for their learners’ instruction, mobility and convenience. The learners themselves also face a great deal of discrimination from their peers,other teachers, the school society, and the larger society as a whole. Teachers therefore spend more time attending to non-education needs of their learners at school, and are frustrated by government's absolute neglect of Inclusive Education needs, which results in unnecessary teacher encumbering. Since these learners encounter stigma and discrimination both from within and outside the schools,the scenario makes the work more difficult for the teacher. To cope with the challenges, teachers learn new skills, look for external support, and search for differentiated instruction techniques for overcoming their learners’ impairments. Teachers use remediation, deeper student engagement, one-on-one student engagement, catch up lessons, differentiated instruction, support from students with mild or no disabilities, and much repetition in order to ensure learning is indeed happening. Secondly, all the teachers interviewed from the two schools indicated that they had not received special training for inclusive education except for some who heard about it in college as part of Special Needs Education course. Teachers therefore lack the technical know-how for handlingclassrooms comprising a variety of students which includes learners with disabilities such aslearning disorders, visual and hearing impairment. Thirdly, analysis also shows that school B (rural)s are more disadvantaged as compared to those in the urban settings regarding IE policy implementation, training opportunities, facilities andaccessibility to resources. There is a critical debate going on whether IE in Malawi is indeed realistic where learners with acute disabilities are placed together with their "normal" peers in the same classrooms with very limited resources. The student - teacher ratio is averaged at over 60:1, with critical lack of teaching and learning materials such as textbooks, hearing aids or visual effects. The most noble question is whether one teacher would effectively manage 60 students of whom 8 to 12 have acute disabilities. Over 60% of the teachers interviewed sincerely alluded to the fact that they did not know the difference between IE and SNE and the implications on the paradigm shift in education provision. The study also found that, apart from daily personal challenges they face to maneuver around school campuses, learners with disabilities face interminable challenges such as discriminatory education system. Notwithstanding, there are ways that both teachers and the learners devise for coping with this challenge.Conclusion and recommendation: Not only does IE policy in Malawi require review on moreteacher trainings but also review of the entire policy. Study respondents who were interviewed expressed dissatisfaction with government’s handling of the IE policy development process, indicating that they were not consulted. Furthermore, since teachers argued that they were not trained, implementation has already failed even before starting. Without training policy implementers on how to handle classes that include learners with disabilities, IE cannot be successful. The Ministry of Education should consider providing special training for all teachers on inclusive Education and accentuate the paradigm shift from Special Needs Educatio

Biological Activities of Essential Oils from Plants Growing in Tanzania

Essential oils from eleven plant species belonging to the Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Lauraceae and Myrothamnaceae families growing in Tanzania were screened for mosquito larvicidal and anti-candida activities, and were subjected to the brine shrimp lethality test. In the larvicidal and brine shrimp tests, the organisms were exposed to varying oil concentrations for 24 h, after which mortality was assessed. The anticandida activity was determined using the bioautography agar overlay method. All oils showed larvicidal activity with two Ocimum suave oil samples being the most active with LC50 values of 169.8 and 151.3 ppm. The same Ocimum suave oils also exhibited the highest brine shrimp mortality (LC50 4.0 and 12.6 ppm). Most of the oils showed anti-candida activity, with oils from Ocimum species being the most active compared to the others. Thus, Ocimum suave oils merit further investigation towards the development of safe and biodegradable larvicides. Furthermore, oils from Ocimum basilicum and Ocimum kilimandscharicum could offer useful alternatives for combating candidiasis, a common opportunistic infection in HIV/AIDS patients.Keywords: Ocimum species, larvicides, brine shrimp, Candida albicansEast and Central African Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Vol. 13 (2010) 85-9

Institutional rearrangements in the North Luangwa Ecosystem: implications of a shift to community based natural resource management for equity in protected area governance

Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) is presented as an equitable approach, particularly relative to strict types of Area-based conservation. In Zambia, traditional and formal, contemporary institutions were combined to leverage CBNRM for natural resource management. We investigate whether and how this shift in conservation approach and interaction between institutions works in practice, and to what extent it produces more equitable governance processes. We identified 30 key informants from NGOs and government departments via snowball sampling. We conducted 20 focus group discussions involving local community participants in three Game Management Areas (GMAs) adjacent to North Luangwa National Park. Focus groups were divided by age and gender to minimize any potential influence of unequal power relations. Data collection included informal discussions with individual community members and participant observation. We found that the customary roles held by chiefs gave them relative power over the Community resources board and made them gatekeepers for NGOs and government institutions. Instead of fostering community participation and empowerment, new CBNRM institutions have had the unintended consequence of increasing the customary chiefs’ power through commercialization and bureaucratization of their positions. Rather than reinforcing local and indigenous institutions CBNRM has become a vehicle through which governments and NGOs centralize power and manufacture consent while weakening traditional institutions and reproducing existing patterns of inequity. This research provides unique insights into the workings of a CBNRM institution that is a hybrid between traditional (socially embedded) and Government (bureaucratic) institutions. We recommend that rather than simply setting up idealized institutions as a means to devolve power and enhance equity, the realisation of effective local participation and representation in CBNRM projects requires careful assessment of cultural contexts, local institutions and power dynamics

Utility of WT-1, p63, MOC31, mesothelin, and cytokeratin (K903 and CK5/6) immunostains in differentiating adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and malignant mesothelioma in effusions

To distinguish carcinoma, either adenocarcinoma (ADC) or squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and malignant mesothelioma (MM) in effusion can be a diagnostic challenge based on morphology alone. This study evaluates the utility of WT-1, p63, MOC31, mesothelin, and cytokeratin (K903 and CK5/6) immunostains in effusions when ADC and SCC of the lung are in the differential diagnosis with MM. A cohort of 43 effusions consisting of lung ADC ( N = 10), SCC ( N = 15), and MM ( N = 18, mostly (16) pleural based), was subjected to immunostains using the above mentioned antibodies. WT-1 was positive in 100% MM, 0% ADC, and 0% SCC cases while p63 was positive in 0% MM, 30% ADC, and 80% SCC cases. Stain for MOC31 was positive in 100% ADC, 67% SCC, and 35% MM cases. Similarly, mesothelin antibody stained 100% ADC, 60% SCC, and 47% MM cases. Antibodies for K903 and CK5/6 stained 100% SCC cases but fewer ADC cases (40 and 10%, respectively). In conclusion, in this cohort of mostly pleural malignant effusion, MM can be identified with positive staining for WT-1 and negative staining for p63. Conversely, negative staining with WT-1 and positive staining for p63 exclude MM. Used as part of an immunostain panel, cytokeratin markers (CK5/6 and K903) are useful in differentiating SCC from ADC when MM is already excluded, and MOC31 might have limited value in differentiating ADC from MM. A negative stain with MOC31 can exclude lung ADC. Mesothelin, on the other hand, is not useful in the differential diagnosis of ADC, SCC, and MM. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2008;36:20–25. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57547/1/20747_ftp.pd

Disability policy and practice in Malawian employment and education

Malawi is a landlocked country in Southern Africa with a population of 17.5 million. It has taken great strides in addressing disability inequality in recent years. Despite this, Malawian trade unions, educators and disability activists report wide-reaching disability discrimination at an infrastructural and individual level. Situated at the intersections between disability studies and medical sociology, alongside work of postcolonial and Global South scholars, this article highlights how neo-colonial and Anglocentric dominant framings of disability do not necessarily fit the Malawian workforce, as they ignore cultural and structural differences in the causes and maintenance of ill health and disability. Building on interviews with workers with disabilities, trade unionists, educators, government representatives and disability activists in Malawi’s two biggest cities, the article emphasises the need to address specific local contexts; while policy asserts a model of social oppression, in practice, disability inclusion requires recognition of the social determinants of disability and inequality, and the economic, political and cultural context within which disability resides. Sharing co-designed approaches to engaging with disability definitions, stigma, language, infrastructure and resources, this article highlights the necessity of grounding disability and medical sociological theory in localised framings and lived experiences

Tourism resilience in the context of integrated destination and disaster management (DM2)

The disaster management principles should be integrated into the destination management plans to enhance resilience of tourist destinations to natural disasters. The success of such integration depends on the extent of tourism stakeholder collaboration, but this topic remains understudied, especially in the Caribbean. This paper evaluates tourism resilience in Grenada. It finds that local tourism stakeholders are well aware of the potential damage natural disasters can inflict on the destination but fail to develop effective measures to build destination-wide and organizational resilience. The paper proposes an action framework to aid tourism stakeholders in Grenada to more effectively plan for disasters

Preliminary Results from Organisational Resilience and Recovery Study December 2010

The Resilient Organisations Research Programme and the University of Canterbury are undertaking a longitudinal study to examine the resilience and recovery of organisations within the Canterbury region following the 4 September Canterbury earthquake. The preliminary data suggest the physical, economic and social effects of the earthquake were varied across industry sectors within Canterbury. These preliminary results catalogue organisations’ perceptions of the: - disruptions to their ability to do business - challenges faced in the aftermath of the earthquake - factors that have helped mitigate the effects of the earthquake - revenue changes and projections for the duration of this change - financing options for recover

The Recovery of Canterbury’s Organisations:A comparative analysis of the 4 September 2010, 22 February and 13 June 2011 Earthquake

The 4 September, 22 February, and 13 June earthquakes experienced in Canterbury, New Zealand would have been significant events individually. Together they present a complex and unprecedented challenge for Canterbury and New Zealand. The repetitive and protracted nature of these events has caused widespread building and infrastructure damage, strained organisations’ financial and human resources and challenged insurer and investor confidence. The impact of the earthquakes was even more damaging coming in the wake of the worst worldwide recession since the great depression of the 1930s. However, where there is disruption there is also opportunity. Businesses and other organisations will drive the physical, economic and social recovery of Canterbury, which will be a dynamic and long-term undertaking. Ongoing monitoring of the impacts, challenges and developments during the recovery is critical to maintaining momentum and making effective mid-course adjustments. This report provides a synthesis of research carried out by the Resilient Organisations (ResOrgs) Research Programme1 at the University of Canterbury and Recover Canterbury in collaboration with Opus Central Laboratories (part of Opus International Consultants). The report includes discussions on the general state of the economy as well as data from three surveys (two conducted by ResOrgs and one by Recover Canterbury) on business impacts of the earthquakes, population movements and related economic recovery issues. This research and report offers two primary benefits