10. Monitoring and evaluation
5.3.3 Social Cooperative Members
see over a period of time that they have made a positive difference in the community through the continued existence of the youth development academy, creates organisational payoffs in terms of morale, agency loyalty, reputation and legitimacy of the NPO. Extrinsic rewards, such as agency reputation and the willingness of other stakeholders to collaborate with them, could also be seen as a reward for sustainable outcomes.
Biographical details of the cooperative members – Academy 2
Figure 5.8: Gender, educational levels and number of years in the cooperative The social cooperatives are involved in catering, cleaning, poultry husbandry and vegetable farming, baking and tailoring. In both academies, as reflected on Figures 5.7 and 5.8, the majority of the participants are female at 75% and 78% respectively, while males constitute 25% and 22% respectively. This is consistent with the findings gleaned from recent research (ILO, 2015; Maleko, 2015), which indicated a steady rise of female participation in cooperatives. According to the ILO (2015) survey, this highlights the unique effectiveness of the cooperative model in providing women with a dignified way out of poverty, often away from abuse and violence. In the same survey, a two thirds majority felt that the cooperative environment offered a comfortable space for women to express themselves and that the cooperative environment offered women opportunities to participate in the governance and management of their own business affairs. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (1996) findings on gender dimensions of participation in cooperatives indicated low female participation in cooperatives owing to gender stereotypes and socio-cultural practices, mostly in countries in the southern hemisphere.
This appears to have changed dramatically in the ensuing years, as reflected in the ILO (2015) and Maleko (2015) studies.
The number of years that the members have spent in the same cooperative ranges from one month to 11 years. Their educational levels seem to be at a functional level, as they
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Males Female <Gr 9 Gr 10-12 Diploma / Degree <4 Yrs >4 Yrs
range between grades 7 and 12. This is consistent with the observations regarding the educational levels in rural areas and socio-economic and cultural dimensions (Aitchison, Harley & Land, 1996; Mkhize, 2017).
5.3.3.2 Age, race, ethnic group, language and location of cooperative members – Academy 1
Figure 5.9: Age, race, ethnic group, language and location
Age, race, ethnic group, language and location of cooperative members – Academy 2
Figure 5.10: Age, race, ethnic group, language and location
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23-35 36-49 50-59 Black Zulu Isizulu Local Other
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Age Race Ethnic group Language Location
25-35 36-45 46-54 Black Zulu Isizulu Local Other
In Figures 5.9 and 5.10 the data depicts the demographic composition of the members of the social cooperatives operating in the two youth development academies. Again, consistent with the data on the board members, the composition of the cooperatives in terms of race, ethnic group, language and location is homogenous. This implies that the members of the cooperatives are local people from the communities surrounding the academies. None of them reside in an urban area and they work at the cooperatives because of their location. They all indicated that they were from the local municipality where the academies are located.
Figure 5.11: Cooperative type, gender, age and educational levels
In Figure 5.11 the age difference among the members of the cooperatives is remarkably wide. In the poultry and vegetable gardening cooperatives the age gap or difference has a wider range of 30 – 55, while the narrowest is in tailoring at 23 – 30. It is worth noting that the youngest cohort is that of tailoring and it also has the highest level of education at grade 12. The oldest cohort is that of cleaning at 35 – 59 years of age whose educational levels are the lowest at between grades 5 to 7. The majority of the participants are female, except in tailoring where there is a majority of females against one male.
With regard to the issues of the current roles of the NPO board in the governance of the youth development academies, the participants responded by saying that the NPO board
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Poultry and vegetable Catering Cleaning Bakery Tailor - Making
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should focus on addressing issues concerning the academies, such as guarding the site and ensuring that all operations in the academies run effortlessly and smoothly.
One participant mentioned that the NPO board, ‘should assist the co-operatives with addressing all challenges and problems they might be confronted with at the academy’, Another added that, ‘the board should responsible for regularly holding meetings with the academy, the co-operatives involved to inform them about issues they might need clarity on so that everybody knows what is going on’.
The discussions went on to deal with whether or not the management and leadership arrangements currently in place at the academies should continue without change.
All the participants in both academies felt that the current arrangement should not change, as the NPO board is a major factor in leading the academies. However, in one academy there was a strong feeling that there should be at least one person on the board who is from the local community as a representative. All participants also felt that there should be at least one representative from each co-operative at the board meetings to represent their co-operatives.
A number of participants did not display any knowledge about the way in which the current management policies are developed and who was responsible for the implementation of the management policies, while others claimed that they have no knowledge of policies.
This was an indication of the lack of engagement by the NPO board and the management of the academies with a key stakeholder in the academies
On whether or not the cooperatives in the academies are receiving enough support from the government departments and NPO boards, a number of participants suggested that the Department of Social Development should assist with funding to ensure that the basic necessities of all co-operatives were taken care of by paying the members a salary.
A participant in one of the focus groups responded by saying that, ‘government departments should assist with funding, the NPO board with supervision and the youth
academy management can assist with helping co-operatives pay our salaries’. In the second focus group, even though no-one raised it openly, there seemed to be an inclination towards the same sentiment. This suggested that the members of the cooperatives resoundingly supported a system where someone or some authority would pay them standard salaries, and this came from both focus groups involving the cooperatives.
Participants also overwhelmingly responded by saying that should the government discontinue funding the NPOs, the co-operatives would find it difficult to continue operating.
With regard to what the roles of the various stakeholders involved in the affairs of the academy should be, the participants’ responses can be categorized as described below.
The Department of Social Development
The participants felt that the DSD should galvanized other government departments to provide more support and funding to co-operatives.
Other government departments
The participants expressed the desire for other government departments to assist them with funding, skills development and mentoring. They felt that this could assist in improving their productivity and competitiveness and thus their sustainability.
The NPO Boards
The participants felt that all co-operatives should be treated with fairness and that there should be better transparency. When probed about what this means, the participants raised issues of not being treated fairly regarding prices for their services, the funding paid to the NPO boards, lack of transparency and consultations by the NPO boards and management.
Management Staff at the Academies
There was a general feeling that emerged during the discussions that the management and staff at the academies were not doing their work diligently and that their actions were not contributing positively to the well-being of the academies. One comment that stood out was, ‘the staff at the academy should do work efficiently and not expect to be micro managed by the Department and to positively support the academy’.
On the role of the Social Cooperatives themselves in the academies
The responses can be summarized in the sense that the cooperatives should find and maintain sustainable methods to keep them in existence. There was a great sense of appreciation for the existence of the social cooperatives and participation in them. The discussion also gave the researcher a sense of social responsibility from the majority of the participants who constantly made reference to, ’assisting needy members of the community’. The researcher got the feeling that the members of the social cooperatives felt a social need to also contribute to the well-being of less fortunate members of the community.
This feeling was corroborated by a statement made by a participant, who said, ‘the local ward councillors should also provide cooperatives lists of needy families so they can assist accordingly’. When the researcher asked various members of the two focus groups if this was how they generally feel, this was confirmed with an overwhelmingly positive response.
They added that the local traditional leadership needed to form a network with the academy and cooperatives for productivity and sustainability. In one of the focus groups the participants added that the local traditional leadership ensure that there is an equal intake of participants from the local community as well as from other districts.
Following hereunder is the presentation of the second form of primary, qualitative data collection. This was gathered through a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with the two traditional leaders, the two local ward councillors and the youth development
academies’ centre managers. The set of questions used in the semi-structured interviews were largely based on the themes that emerged during the first primary qualitative data collection, namely the focus groups.
The first set of semi-structured interviews were conducted with the traditional leaders of the communities in the areas in which the youth development academies are located. The concept of ‘traditional leaders’ in the context of this study was driven by the South African context in which traditional leadership is constructed and the legislative instruments that give effect to the definition and existence of traditional leadership. Traditional leadership in South Africa is given definition and prominence by Chapter 11, Section 211 of the Constitution of South Africa (1996), which defines and recognizes the status and role of traditional leadership in a constitutional democracy and the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act (2003). In the province of KwaZulu-Natal, the institution of traditional leadership is given additional legal status through the KwaZulu-Natal Traditional Leadership and Governance Act (2005). So, traditional leadership in this context is not a form of leadership as would normally be the case when defining leadership in general, but is what in other countries would be defined as tribal leadership.