Empowerment

Crowdsourcing has become a mega trend in recent years, fueling innovation and collaboration in research,
business, society, and government alike.

In this paper, we provide an overview of the theoretical contributions of crowdsourcing to improve democratic governance. We then examine the critical factors necessary for successful crowdsourcing in general (Sharma 2010) and discuss the inherent challenges and risks, particularly in fragile states. We then provide numerous examples from important crowdsourcing and interactive mapping phenomena and initiatives in Haiti, Libya, Sudan, and Guinea
among others. Most of these examples were taken from personal experience, and their accuracy was  checked with key actors. We return to analyzing these cases according to Sharma’s framework. Finally, we provide recommendations for donors.

"If our church doesn't get more young people soon, we're going to die," blurted the head deaconess during my pastoral interview. I looked around the room at the dedicated group of 60- and 70-year-old church leaders. I respected their openness about the reality in their church (and many other churches in North America).

When you don't have many, or any, young adults in your church, what do you do?

Here are four things that ANYONE in ANY CHURCH can do to activate young adults in your church whether you don't have many or any.

This edition has been dedicated to Democracy, Corruption and Development in Africa. It addresses the following issues:
a)  Democracy: Are regular elections enough?  Do election observer missions matter?
b) How can Africa strengthen its democracy and achieve development?
c)  How are data used and abused to manipulate election results?
d) Does corruption reduce chances of a sitting president or party n power being reelected?
e) How have governance institutions failed or slowed down African development?
f) How can aid help Africa to develop?
g) What role should  mass media, community media, social media and formal education play to catalyze African democracy and development?

A literature review was undertaken to examine the content of women’s empowerment self defense courses. The aims of this report were to answer the questions:
What is an empowerment self defense short course?
What is included in the contents of an effective short course?
Is there a need for the course for Japanese college students?

The report will end with a discussion and highlight areas of further research concerning the need for self defense empowerment courses to be taught at Japanese colleges.

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

Teacher burnout is a psychological phenomenon affecting teachers’ effectiveness and wellbeing across the globe. Thus, education researchers have investigated its antecedents to identify approaches to alleviate teacher burnout. However, many of the existing studies tend to underline the effects of psychological factors but overlook the effects of structural factors on teacher burnout. Thus, the aim of this study is to fill the research gap by investigating how teacher burnout is affected by enabling school bureaucracy as a structural factor and psychological empowerment as a psychological factor based on empowerment theory. By using the self-administrated questionnaire survey, the study investigated 322 primary and secondary schoolteachers from China. It finds that structural empowerment and psychological empowerment are negatively associated with teacher burnout. Moreover, the relationship between structural empowerment and teacher burnout was mediated by psychological empowerment, especially its dimensions of meaning and competence. View Full-Text

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and validation of a multi-dimensional instrument to measure servant leadership. Design/Methodology/Approach Based on an extensive literature review and expert judgment, 99 items were formulated. In three steps, using eight samples totaling 1571 persons from The Netherlands and the UK with a diverse occupational background, a combined exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis approach was used. This was followed by an analysis of the criterion-related validity. Findings The final result is an eight-dimensional measure of 30 items: the eight dimensions being: standing back, forgiveness, courage, empowerment, accountability, authenticity, humility, and stewardship. The internal consistency of the subscales is good. The results show that the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) has convergent validity with other leadership measures, and also adds unique elements to the leadership field. Evidence for criterion-related validity came from studies relating the eight dimensions to well-being and performance. Implications With this survey, a valid and reliable instrument to measure the essential elements of servant leadership has been introduced. Originality/Value The SLS is the first measure where the underlying factor structure was developed and confirmed across several field studies in two countries. It can be used in future studies to test the underlying premises of servant leadership theory. The SLS provides a clear picture of the key servant leadership qualities and shows where improvements can be made on the individual and organizational level; as such, it may also offer a valuable starting point for training and leadership development.

This article presents a new theory of development that unifies disparate insights into a single framework, focusing on human empowerment—a process that emancipates people from domination. Human empowerment sets in when mass-scale technological progress widens ordinary people’s ‘action resources.’ As this happens, life turns from a source of threats into a source of opportunities, and societies climb the utility ladder of freedoms: universal freedoms become instrumental to taking advantage of what a more promising life offers. Accordingly, people adopt ‘emancipative values’ that emphasize universal freedoms. As the utility and value of freedoms rise, ‘civic entitlements’ that guarantee these become undeniable at some point. Human empowerment thus proceeds as the sequential growth in the utility, value and guarantee of freedoms (sequence thesis). Because universal freedoms are a reciprocal good that flourishes through mutual recognition, the utility ladder of freedoms is a social ladder: people climb it in alliance with like-minded others who share similar utilities (solidarity thesis). Historically speaking, human empowerment on a mass scale started only recently because civilization matured late where natural conditions bestow an initial utility on freedoms that has been absent elsewhere (initiation thesis). However, globalization is breaking human empowerment free from its confinement to the initially favourable conditions (contagion thesis). Together, these theses form an evolutionary theory of emancipation. After unfolding this theory, the article presents evidence in support of its major propositions.

It is noticeable that Square Victoria is a vivid public space with special characteristics that make it different from the other athenian squares. The characteristics that I focus on are; the fragmentation of square, meaning the creation of different and isolated social spaces, and the powerless approach of female visitors. Their absence from square’s public sphere leads to the weakness of their voice, as murmurings and small groups -like in the diagrams, and their short-term presence.
Based on these observations and conclusions, I worked with the medium of sound installation and actions [sound acts] as interventional practice in space. An audible representation of women directed by me, was inserted into existing conversations at the square. The intention of recorded voices’ interference was to create contact points between the separated (by gender, race and social status) public spheres of the square, causing new encounters, interactions and discussions. The designed sound acts were developed in two phases; the first concerns the correlation actions, that I did and recorded, with women coming to the square and the collection of the archived audible material derived from them. The second phase is about the interactive sound installation and the broadcasting of the audio in the space of the square, during the sound installation and action designed and implemented by me. The broadcast action is part of the new correlations and confrontations occured in the chosen social spaces.

The position and condition of women in Indonesia are considerably far from men, especially in some aspects of life as social, politics, economics, education, and culture. This phenomenon, furthermore, portrays that women is still in a marginal state. Therefore, there should be a special treatment to avoid such problems. The women themselves could gain a special care seriously. They could work on creative economy sectors, for instance because of 14 aspects of creative economy that will be introduced in this article.

Migration is not a novel occurrence; it has always been a driving force along with civilization. The main catalyst behind the new era of migration is globalization. Migration is a gendered topic, and in previous academic discourse from which women have often been excluded from it. However, the effect of male migration on female spouses in the home country is an area where research has been scarce. It was not until the last decade that attention was shed on female migrants; and the important role they play in international migration. Therefore this study seeks to explore the effect of male migration on female empowerment in Egypt. This is achieved by investigating two aspects; first, whether the control over remittances increases women’s autonomy, and decision-making thus resulting in empowerment. Secondly, the study also focuses on whether male migration results in a change in traditional gender roles. In order to overcome previous shortcomings, this study compares two groups: women from low-income families and women from middle income families. The main methodology used in this study was qualitative, and that was achieved through interviews. This study uses Naila Al Kabeer’s definition of empowerment as a focal point of analysis. According to Al Kabeer, the ability to make choices is made up of three interconnected areas: resources that are defined as not only access, but also future claims to material and human social resources; agency, which is decision-making or the process of defining goals and acting upon them. Resources and agency together make up what Amartya Sen calls capabilities. Capabilities are the possible abilities or potential that individuals have for living the lives the way they actually want. Lastly, achievements, which are the outcomes, reached. The researcher focused on formulating questions for the women that address these three aspects.

Indoor environmental health is now recognized as an important factor in preventing respiratory health problems in the United States. It is also a concern in Canada due to the amount of time that Canadians spend indoors because of cold weather and the potential for increased time indoors during the summer if the climate warms. The negative health effects are often labeled as sick building syndrome, but diagnosing a building or its occupants as sick is complicated by the variety of symptoms, the presence of chronic versus acute symptoms and social and psychological (socio-psychological) factors that may reduce the effectiveness of an engineering solution. As a case study, the contribution of various factors to indoor environmental health, in three buildings at the University of Toronto, was examined using five different methods. The results indicate that the inhabitants of the buildings consider features other than air quality in considering building health such as design, maintenance...

Introduccion: en la eleccion de un alimento entran en juego diversos factores sociales y culturales que determinan no solo la seleccion, sino tambien su consumo y utilizacion, por ello los cambios relacionados con la alimentacion son considerados cambios sociales. Objetivo: abordar el empoderamiento de una comunidad en cultura alimentaria como estrategia de salud. Metodos: desde el punto de vista metodologico se asumio el enfoque cualitativo critico-dialectico y como metodo de trabajo, la investigacion-accion participativa. El trabajo se realizo en la comunidad del sector "Jose Ignacio Acevedo" del Municipio Los Guayos del Estado Carabobo, Venezuela, desde agosto de 2011 a julio de 2013. Resultados: se identifico la situacion de salud de la comunidad y a partir de ahi surgio la necesidad de iniciar la siembra de cultivos caseros y comunitarios que favorecieron la transformacion de los habitos alimentarios de la comunidad por otros mas saludables al incorporar a la rutina a...

Empowerment of people in challenging circumstances is a central premise of participatory health research (PHR). Empowerment, a process of strengthening vis-à-vis one's social environment, has three components: personal, relational, and political. The current PHR study was conducted with mothers living in unfortunate situations in the Netherlands. In this article, we describe how PHR fostered personal empowerment to a certain degree by 1. setting an agenda for the project (ownership), and 2. listening to and acknowledging the articulation of the participants' own story and a collective story about their issues (epistemic justice). One result of the study is that achieving relational and political empowerment can be challenging. Relational tensions in the group distracted us. Conducting critical reflection on more structural causes of the unfortunate situations of the mothers is a process that needs time and calls for relational sensitivity and inclusion. The participatory researcher as facilitator focused on ethics and tried to collaborate with creative outsiders to change the disharmony in the group. Reaching relational and political empowerment is a long-term process in PHR, but not without stumbling blocks on the journey.

Few problems in education are as pressing as the severe crisis in urban schools. Though educators have tried a wide range of remedies, dismal results persist. This is especially true for low-income youth of color, who drop out of school-and into incarceration-at extremely high rates. The dual calamity of underachievement in schools and violence in many communities across the country is often met with blame and cynicism, and with a host of hurtful and unproductive quick fixes: blaming educators, pitting schools against each other, turning solely to the private sector, and ratcheting up the pressure on teachers and students. But real change will not be possible until we shift our focus from finding fault to developing partnerships, from documenting problems to discovering solutions. Learning to Liberate does just that by presenting true and compelling community-based approaches to school reform. Drawing on over three years of ethnographic research, Vajra Watson explores the complicated process of reaching and teaching today's students. She reveals how four nontraditional educators successfully empower young people who have repeatedly been left behind. Using portraiture, a methodology rooted in vivid storytelling, Watson analyzes each educator's specific teaching tactics. Uncovering four distinct pedagogies-of communication, community, compassion, and commitment-she then pulls together their key strategies to create a theoretically grounded framework that is both useful and effective. A poignant, insightful, and practical analysis, Learning to Liberate is a timely resource for all educators and youth-serving practitioners who are committed to transforming "at-risk" youth into "at-promise" individuals who put their agency and potential into action in their schools and neighborhoods.

أثر التمكين الإداري في إبداع العاملين: دراسة حالة مصنع كمران
المُلخص
هدفت الدراسة إلى تحديد مستوى واختبار أثر التمكين الإداري في إبداع العاملين بمصنع كمران. احتوى نموذج الدراسة على متغيرين هما المتغير المستقل (التمكين الإداري) وأبعاده (تفويض السلطة، التدريب، التحفيز، العمل الجماعي، الاتصال الفعال) أما المتغير التابع (إبداع العاملين) فأبعاده (الأصالة، الطلاقة، المرونة، روح المبادرة، التحليل المنهجي والتنبؤ بالمشكلات). اتبع الباحث المنهج الوصفي التحليلي، وتكون مجتمع الدراسة من جميع العاملين بالمصنع والبالغ عددهم (400) عامل. تم اعتماد العينة العشوائية الطبقية، حيث وزعت (150) استبانة، اُسترجع منها (133) استبانة أي ما نسبته (88.6%)، استخدم برنامج SPSS v20 للتحليل الإحصائي.
وتوصلت الدراسة إلى عدد من النتائج أهمها:
1. أظهرت نتائج الدراسة وجود درجات متفاوتة تجاه مستوى ممارسة كلٍ من التمكين الإداري وإبداع العاملين لصالح المتغير التابع (إبداع العاملين).
2. وجود أثر ذي دلالة إحصائية طردي بين المتغير المستقل (التمكين الإداري) و إبداع العاملين بمصنع كمران وأن ما نسبته (43%) من المتغيرات الحاصلة في إبداع العاملين تعزى إلى المتغيرات الحاصلة في التمكين الإداري و(37%) الباقية ترجع إلى عوامل أخرى لم تتطرق إليها الدراسة.
3. وجود فروق ذات دلالة إحصائية لمتوسطات تقديرات أفراد العينة تجاه مستوى ممارسة التمكين الإداري تُعزى لمتغر (العمر – المؤهل العلمي).
4. لا توجد فروق ذات دلالة إحصائية لمتوسطات تقديرات أفراد العينة تجاه مستوى ممارسة إبداع العاملين تُعزى لمتغيراتهم الديموغرافية.
التوصيات:
1. أكدت الدراسة على إيجاد مناخ تنظيمي يساعد على تطبيق مفهوم التمكين الإداري، كما أوصت بضرورة وضع نظام للحوافز يتسم بالعدالة والموضوعية.
2. الاهتمام بجانب التدريب والتأهيل لجميع العاملين عبر تحديد الاحتياجات التدريبية وقياس العائد من التدريب، وهذا سيؤدي إلى زيادة كفاءتهم ومهارتهم في العمل.

The notion of women been viewed as the weaker sex has ascribed to most women feeling excluded and less important in Nigeria. It is also instilled in young girls that women has no say over a man which is an epic mindset, this has also limit female leadership potential in Nigerian work environment. Some of the religious and traditional norms in Nigeria belief that a girl child education is a waste of resources and that a woman's qualification ends in the kitchen. The gender inequality has silenced the voice of women, all these plays a setback role for women in pursuing their carriers. National development of an economy can improve effectively with the active participation of women in the labour force. According to World Bank in 2016, Nigeria has 49.34% of female population, in 2017 about 45.44% in labour force this percentage constitute employed and underemployed. There is a fact which research has proven that an economy that lacks female contribution will gradual decline. The study investigated the constraints affecting women labour force participation, self-designed questionnaire were applied in retrieving data from 750 female respondent in the North-Central and SouthEast geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Findings indicate that education is the major attribute to decline of female in the labour force participation of Nigeria. The study further noted the policies by the government that are yet to be realistic and concluded with possible recommendations that can alleviate women from the impediment of labour force participation.

ABSTRACT Purpose ‐ This paper outlines the concept of service user leadership and both describes and reflects on an accredited training programme that enables mental health service users to take a leadership role. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The authors argue for a service user leadership approach and the training programme is reviewed by previous participants Findings ‐ Service users can take on a leadership role if they are given suitable and relevant training and development opportunities. Service user led training can be transformational. Practical implications ‐ Commissioners of mental health services should consider how to support service user leadership programmes, which can reach places and achieve outcomes that traditional mental health services are unable to attain. Originality/value ‐ The concept of service user leadership is relatively new and the training programme described in this paper is both original and highly valued by participants with many significant outcomes.

In this paper, we make the case that " empowerment " is still a concept which requires closer scrutiny, for both practical and theoretical reasons. Building on critiques of empowerment and on calls to more consciously address the power relations inherent in adult education, we lay the groundwork for a practical theory of action whereby education practitioners and researchers can work towards salvaging empowerment's emancipatory potential.

With the economic position of women in Muslim countries being a regular focus of public attention and a fiercely debated topic amongst academics, few systematic, detailed descriptions and analyses are available. This book presents a new and nuanced exploration of the topic, introducing a theoretical framework that accommodates both women's individual agency as well as cultural, economic, religious, and political forces shaping their position. Collating research findings involving more than 300,000 women in 383 provinces in 28 Muslim countries ranging from the Middle East via Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia to Indonesia in Southeast Asia, the book, based on this wealth of data, shows how many women earn a living outside agriculture, how big the differences in employment likelihood really are, and how these differences can be explained. In doing so it addresses topical debates on the role of Islam, modernization, globalization, neocolonialism, educational inequalities, patriarchy, household hierarchies, and more. This is a sample chapter.

On 25 February 1999, Guatemalans received the much anticipated report of the United Nations-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), Memory of Silence, which detailed wartime atrocities and decades-long American support of the Guatemalan army. This document followed the earlier release of the Catholic church's own REMHI report (Recuperation of Historical Memory Inter-diocesan Project), Guatemala: never again . Using the recently released reports and databases of the CEH and REMHI, we explore the significant use of testimonio as a tool of shared witnessing, collective remembrance, and individual recollection of the special brutality directed against Maya women. Through testimonio, the outcomes of visible and invisible terror and violence in Guatemala are articulated as personal, social and geographic spaces of terror, all of which are gendered and racialised. With the civil war officially over, Maya women of Guatemala see the spaces of terror diminish. Given debates over testimonio, however, the grounds for assault and denial remain fertile.

Cómo fomentar el empoderamiento de los aprendices en una lengua extranjera.
Después del taller de Barcelona, damos un pasito más con este taller en el Congreso Internacional de Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Español en la Universidad Antonio de Nebrija de Madrid.

Background: Hundreds of evaluators visit the Claremont Colleges in southern California each year to discuss a wide range of topics related to improving the quality of evaluation practice. Debates between thought leaders in the field have been one of the most popular and informative ways to advance understanding about how best to practice evaluation in contemporary times.  Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide a written transcript of the 2009 Claremont Evaluation Debates. The first debate is between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael Scriven on the promise and pitfalls of utilization-focused evaluation. The second debate is between David Fetterman, Michael Quinn Patton, and Michael Scriven on the promise and pitfalls of empowerment evaluation. Setting: The debates occurred at the Claremont Graduate University on August 23-24, 2009. Several hundred evaluators from around the world also viewed and participated in the debates via a live webcast. Intervention: Not applicable. ...

Leadership is important for Nepalese managers today than ever due to globalization and increasing competition. The findings show leadership has near to moderate level of effectiveness in Nepal which means it is under-utilized as indicated by the variable taken for this study i.e. vision, empowerment, communication, task/relationship orientation and locus of control scales. <i>The Journal of Nepalese Business Studies</i> Vol. IV, No.1(2007) pp. 105-109

Self-advocacy groups, which are run by and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, follow traditional liberal definitions of empowerment that center on the cognitive capacities of citizens. Empowerment counters threats of powerlessness and paternalism, but it also threatens to exclude people with more profound forms of cognitive impairment from political participation. Moreover, cognitive-centric accounts of empowerment fail to fully capture the kinds of trials and triumphs I witnessed while observing a regional self-advocacy office between 2008 and 2010. Using Hannah Arendt's concept of action, mainly developed in The Human Condition, I rethink empowerment along Arendt's three dimensions of politics as spontaneous, plural, and public. I provide a narrative account of one self-advocacy group's monthly chapter meeting, arguing that their combined public presence successfully combats ableist prejudice, even as it fails to imitate liberal understandings of empowerment. My account thus offers critical disability studies an alternative conception of political subjectivity.

Forschungsarbeiten in unterschiedlichen Landern haben gezeigt, dass junge Menschen, die in Pflegeeinrichtungen leben, haufig negative Dominanzerfahrungen machen. In diesem Beitrag befassen wir uns mit Methoden, die geeignet sind, Machtbeziehungen in den Blick zu nehmen, wenn es darum geht, die Perspektiven von Jugendlichen auf ihr Alltagsleben zu erfassen. Hierzu berichten wir zunachst die Ergebnisse aus einem Review der internationalen Methodenliteratur inkl. ethischer Fragen, die in diesem Kontext relevant werden. Hiervon ausgehend skizzieren wir unseren Ansatz, mit dem wir versucht haben, jungen Menschen mit einem qualitativen und landerubergreifenden Shortitudinal-Design zur Selbstermachtigung im Forschungsprozess zu verhelfen. Insgesamt haben 16 Personen aus franzosischen und englischen Pflegeeinrichtungen an der Studie teilgenommen. Wir zeigen, wie wir ihnen Kontrolle zuruckgegeben haben: uber ihre Nutzung der Forschungsinstrumente, uber die Themen, die diskutiert wurden und u...

The concept of managers assuming developmental roles such as coaches and learning facilitators has gained considerable attention in recent years as organizations seek to leverage learning by creating infrastructures that foster employee learning and development. Despite the increased focus on coaching, the literature base remains atheoretical. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to compare the empirical findings from three separate studies to derive a comprehensive understanding of coaching models of management and leadership.

Women, as half of the population of each society, play an important role in development. Accordingly, in the recent decades, many sociologists paid their attention to the study of women’s empowerment and its explanations. This study aims to examine the relationship between digital divide and women empowerment in Iran. In addition, we attempted to assess the women empowerment and its dimensions (access and control of resources, participation, gender awareness, mobility and security). Also we investigated independent variables including marital Status, respondents and their families’ Income, social class, Education level of respondents and their spouses, Head of household status, employment status, occupation, age, technology divide, information access divide, information literacy divide. By multistage random sampling, 600 ones were surveyed based on leen formula. Required Data was collected from Shiraz women aged 15-54 through distributed questionnaires. The study findings indicated variables: social status, respondent and husband education, technology divide, and information literacy divide and information access had a significant relation with the women empowerment; meanwhile marital status had no significant relationship with women empowerment. Multiple regression showed that 27 percent of the variance of women empowerment variable was explained through the independent variables (information literacy divide, respondents under Graduate Diploma).

With the lack of attention to the attrition of child participants, loss to follow up (LTFU) holds significant implications for the health of young adults in the Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study (PHACS), a multi-center cohort study with children either perinatally infected with HIV (PHIV) or HIV-exposed uninfected (HEU). Young adults (18+) face barriers to being retained in the study, including competing time demands, geographic relocation, study fatigue, stigma, and low health literacy. Formative research, Photovoice (participatory photo elicitation), and a focus group informed the design of a web-based media strategy based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to increase study engagement. Six members of the Young Adult and Adult Community Advisory Boards (CABs) were recruited via email and given Photovoice training via Prezi. Photos were taken around the theme of self-identity. A teleconference focus group facilitated reflections and salient themes for the video compilation exhibit. Themes included: 1) stereotypes, 2) layered-identities, 3) stigma, and 4) self-identity. Additional meta-themes were also codified. Media strategy recommendations included: 1) participatory media and photography, 2) digital story maps, 3) social media, and 4) content and topics. Based on the results of this project with a limited sample, participatory media like Photovoice may have a positive impact on participants at risk for LTFU by increasing study engagement. While some research supports this qualitative methodology, limitations must be considered. Future PHACS projects should incorporate a needs assessment and evaluation. Moreover, further research in this area of public health and health communication needs to continue overall.

The introduction and rise of female entrepreneurs is believed to be ushering potential for economic growth as well as harnessing opportunities for female expression, emancipation and empowerment as stated by Kumar (2014). However, the encouraging statistics on the rise of female owned businesses in Zimbabwe and the global world, has raised concerns on the paltry involvement of women entrepreneurs in the downstream petroleum industry, with specific reference to the fuel retail sector. Given all the efforts made to lure female entrepreneurs in the fuel retail sector, one may wonder why the fuel retail industry is not attracting more female entrepreneurs. This ignited academic interest warranting a research on the phenomenon. The objectives of the study were focused on specific variables i.e. limited access to finance, cultural factors, business ethics and women's capabilities and skills in running the fuel service station stations. Conceptually, the study was delimited to issues impacting on female entrepreneurs in the downstream petroleum industry, with specific reference to the fuel service stations. Literature confirms that the establishment of female entrepreneurs in the fuel retail sector contributes to the economic development of any country as highlighted by Akubue (2001) when he posits that gender equality and female entrepreneurship are key factors in economic development. Chinomona and Maziriri (2015) state that women entrepreneurs face a myriad of challenges both in starting and in growing their business ventures implying that there are several issues that affect the women entrepreneurs in the fuel service station sector. The women entrepreneurs get limited access to finance due to two main interpretations which are the supply-side discrimination factors and the demand-side factors relating to women entrepreneurs' choices, preferences and motivations. The epistemology research philosophy was used mainly due to its significance in influencing how researchers frame their research in their attempts to discover knowledge by looking at The relationship between a subject and an object to explore thus allowing the researcher to inquire about the factors affecting women entrepreneurs in the fuel service station sector. Mixed methods approach, with attributes from positivism and naturalism, was used to analyse the factors which affect women entrepreneurs in the downstream fuel service station sector. The sampling of the fuel service station employees and clients was based on non-probability sampling techniques such as convenience and judgemental sampling. Findings were that issues affecting participation and performance of women entrepreneurs in the downstream Petroleum industry with specific reference to the Fuel Service Stations in Zimbabwe were lack of access to finances, socio-cultural factors, entrepreneurial ethics and lack of capacity and skills. Recommendations were that the regulatory body and financial institutions, in partnership with stakeholders in the petroleum industry had to design productive strategies to empower female entrepreneurs in the fuel service station sector.