Search results for "welfare"
showing 10 items of 921 documents
The effectiveness of rural versus urban nonprofit organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo
2017
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a country with high natural resources, but it has suffered from decades of civil wars and social turmoil, being heavily aid-dependent. In the DRC, several Nonprofit Organisations (NPOs) are major players in fighting poverty and enhancing welfare. This research aims to analyse the effectiveness of small NPOs in improving poor peoples’ lives through health, education, and economic activities. Two NPOs working in the DRC, one in a rural and the other in an urban area, are compared by researching the aid sites and surveying 201 households (aid beneficiaries). Our case observations and the survey results facilitate analysing the mission accomplishment, e…
‘We Are a Training and Development Organisation’ – Research and Development in Finnish Polytechnics
2010
This chapter discusses the research mission of the polytechnic sector in Finland. According to the Finnish Ministry of Education, polytechnics have already become essential actors in the regional innovation system, but they should enhance their regional impact with measures taken to develop the structure of education provision, to combine polytechnics’ regional development projects into larger entities linking different sectors, and to boost networking with different stakeholders, higher education institutions and schools. Polytechnics’ contacts with the world of work have also improved significantly with the aim of evolving into development processes, which benefit all the partners involve…
Citizens' participation and community orientation – indicators of social sustainability of rural welfare services
2011
The article discusses the issues of social services in rural areas from a theoretical view point of sustainability paradigms of social work. The ecological crisis existing beyond the ongoing global economic crisis is not separated from the increasing urbanization and weakening perspectives in rural areas. The paper is based on results from a participatory action research project in Finland, which aims at strengthening social service provision in rural areas through citizens' participation and community-orientation. The neoliberal politics of centralization, marketization and privatization are heavily transforming rural regions also in the Nordic welfare states right now. The debates in the …
Varieties of universalism : post-1990s developments in the initial school-based model of VET in Finland and Sweden and implications for transitions t…
2016
The Nordic countries are often referred to as a group even though their education systems and training models are very different. The aim of this study is to advance understanding of those differen...
Welfare State inSpain. Sustainability criteria
2014
The construction of models of universal coverage in Spain and Europe, that established social rights, has offered a period of prosperity, peace and freedom in the second half of the twentieth century that was based on social justice. These values have benefited all of us. Despite the significant achievements that were made, the economic crisis has raised different voices warning about the impossibility of social protection systems. The difficulties of the time and the resource constraints have encouraged an ideological offensive against the welfare state, predicting its end in a short term. Therefore we have to consider that the present moment leads to the review and "deconstruction" of wha…
Unaccompanied Minors in Greece and Italy: An Exploration of the Challenges for Social Work within Tighter Immigration and Resource Constraints in Pan…
2021
The number of unaccompanied minors (UAMs) arriving in the European Union (EU) has been increasing dramatically over recent years resulting in the formulation of EU policy directives around safeguarding and well-being. Notably, the majority of UAMs enter Europe irregularly through two main gateways to the European continent: via Italy, using the Central Mediterranean Sea route
Limits and challenges for the participation of migrants' associations in state development policies in Morocco and Mexico
2013
In many developing countries, migrants play an important role by supporting their local communities in their places of origin. An extensive literature has made visible their contribution to local development, thus revealing their involvement in the provision of social services or the construction of infrastructures. In this paper we illustrate the extent and scope of this task and the types of actions that migrants have started up in different countries of the world in general, and the cases of Morocco and Mexico in particular, to examine the achievements and limitations of both states' policies and migrants' associations in regard to their involvement in local development initiatives.
Finland: From Steering to the Evaluation of Effectiveness
2017
The Finnish sport system consists of three major elements: voluntarism in sport clubs; the public sector with state subsidies for municipalities’ sport budgets; and the private sector’s offering of sport-related services and products. Participation in sport by Finns has traditionally been based on the combination of a strong civic sector and state support. Nowadays, however, as a result of the recent economic recession, the breakdown of the Nordic welfare model and changing values in relation to voluntary work, there have been changes in Finland in terms of the condition of sport and the relationship between the public and voluntary sectors. There has also been a decline in the level of sta…
Socio-economic Disparity problems and Convergence Policy in the EU States
2016
The purpose of this paper is to investigate socio-economic development condition and convergence evaluation in the EU-28 states in the context of the EU policy goals. The arm of this research is to estimate socioeconomic disparities and convergence problems in the European states by applying real valuations of well-being situations and economic development challenges in the EU member states. The research methodology is based on the European Commission legitimate documents application and socio-economic strategies, on the convergence theory and convergence scenario calculations and the socioeconomic forecasts analysis in the EU states. This research presents information about different socio…
Local social services in disaster management: Is there a Nordic model?
2017
Abstract The Nordic states have extensive welfare systems in which the local social services are an important component. Despite a growing research on disaster resilience, we lack research examining in systematic way whether and how local social services in the Nordic countries contribute to resilience. Aiming to fill this gap, this article asks whether we can identify a common Nordic model of the role of local social services in disasters, or whether the countries have taken different paths. We use policy documents and legislation to examine the extent to which roles for local social services are embedded in the disaster management systems of the five Nordic countries. We analyze the insti…