Suchergebnisse

Adolescents are a rapidly growing group in Tanzania. One out of five Tanzanians are below the age of 19, and a specific concern is their sexual and reproductive health. Although adolescent issues are now featuring high up on the agenda of policy makers and practitioners, little is known about the interactions between adolescents in Tanzania, especially with regard to leisure activities. This article presents findings from a research into social interactions between females and males aged between 15-19 years. The research was conducted in leisure places in the urban neighbourhood of Makurumla Kagera, located in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Using a qualitative approach, a total of 20 adolescents were interviewed in a semi-structured style. Findings indicate that leisure places and adolescents' representations are a controversial topic of discussion in Makurumla Kagera, especially with regard to appropriate female behaviour. This is not merely between generations, but also within the generation itself. A complex mosaic of attitudes and opinions about leisure places and related gender-based representations of adolescents can be observed.

In various parts of Sub‐Saharan Africa, malaria is endemic in areas where rain‐fed agriculture implies seasonal mobility from villages to paddy fields. Contributing to the small but growing literature on livelihood and malaria, this article examines the ways in which social actors mobilise, combine and transform capitals on the household and community levels to obtain malaria treatment. It emphasises the structuring force of cultural capital and argues that farmers of the Kilombero Valley in Tanzania develop a remarkable resilience to malaria. However, in spite of all their efforts, the web of resilience they are able to create remains rather weak and should be strengthened through intersectoral collaboration between government and civil society organisations and innovative interventions.

Research on sustainable development tends to focus on risk and vulnerability. This article argues for a shift of emphasis from vulnerability to resilience. It develops a Multi‐layered social resilience framework emphasising the interactions between enabling factors and capacities operating at different levels of society. Enabling factors help to master threats by facilitating access to and transformation of capitals. Capacities lead social actors not only to cope with adverse conditions (reactive) but also to create responses (proactive) that increase competence and thus create pathways for mitigation. This approach redirects attention from managing risk to building resilience – an important prerequisite for sustainable development.

This study applied the multi‐layered social resilience framework in the context of an urban malaria control programme by using a qualitative approach. It was found that exchange between and within administrative levels supported resilience‐building processes in terms of mosquito breeding site elimination. 'Reactive' and 'proactive' capacities were successfully built among programme staff. However, more potential could be tapped among local leaders and household members, by increasing their competence in eliminating breeding sites of malaria vectors. Improving the communication skills of the programme's field workers might support such processes. Together with local leaders, they could act as multipliers of sensitisation messages.