Participatory Experiences of Women in Economic Development Cooperatives in Bhambayi,KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Abstract

Purpose:

Nation states in both the Global North and South have debated the human rights and liberatory function as opposed to the dependency and economically viable function of social protection policy. This article is an attempt to advance empirical knowledge in the field of social protection policy and poverty alleviation.

Method:

Using participatory action methodology, I present evidence from 11 women who were involved in an arts and craft economic development cooperative in a community named Bhambayi in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Results:

Underscored by the asset-based community development and sustainable livelihood frameworks, this article presents three themes: positive contributions to human capacity development, supportive intersectoral collaboration, and striving for economic self-reliance.

Conclusions:

This article proposes fresh strategies for women who find themselves outside the circle of secure economic livelihoods to move beyond short-term and survival strategies and work toward economic inclusion.

Keywords

social protection women economic cooperatives poverty alleviation

This article is an extension of a pilot study that was conducted in a predominantly informal settlement in North of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, which examined the economic benefits of women who initiated livelihood activities to supplement their state social grant household income (Raniga & Ngcobo, 2014). Social protection policy has been accepted as important to ensure the basic minimum quality of life for citizens. Nation states in both the Global North and South have debated the human rights and liberatory function as opposed to the dependency and economically viable function of social protection policy. In the second decade of democracy, it is commendable that the South African government has supported the human rights function of social protection through assisting 16.4 million people with cash transfers through the payment of social security grants (Social Assistance Act, amended 2008). Recent empirical evidence by Raniga and Simpson (2011), Raniga and Motloung (2014), Raniga and Mathe (2011), and Raniga and Ngcobo (2014) revealed that social grants do provide an important economic safety net for female-headed households in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. In the same breath however, the findings of these qualitative studies revealed that the cash transfers of social grants were menial and insufficient to assist women to lift the households out of poverty. The study conducted by Raniga and Ngcobo (2014) also concluded that women who are single parents from low-income communities face social and economic exclusion on the grounds of poverty, cultural factors, and sexual discrimination. The authors suggested that successful realization of social development goals requires transformative interventions and affirmation by government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector of women’s livelihood activities in respect of funding, social support, relevant training, and “rationalizing of such community-based groups within their indigenous cultures” (Makhubele, 2008, p. 37; Raniga & Ngcobo, 2014).

In this article, I present the qualitative experiences of 11 women engaged in an arts and craft economic development cooperative project using a combination of asset-based community development (ABCD) and sustainable livelihood frameworks. The analysis deliberates three core themes: positive contributions to human capacity development, supportive intersectoral collaboration, and striving for economic self-reliance. The central premise of this article is that women who are dependent on state social grants have the potential to drive their own economic development process by mobilizing untapped resources and assets within and outside their residential community thereby creating economic opportunities that will assist them to break the cycle of poverty.

Economic Cooperatives, Poverty Alleviation, and Social Development

Post 1994, it is positive that South Africa’s legislation such as The White Paper for Social Welfare (1997) and the National Development Plan (National Planning Commission, 2013) places much emphasis on encouraging self-employment, skills training, and development within both the first and second economy in order to deal with dire poverty, inequality, and unemployment levels in the country. It is a serious concern that South Africa’s inequality levels have deepened in the past two decades; as in 1994, the Gini coefficient in the country was 59.3, rising to 63.1 in 2005, and increased further to 65.0 in 2011 (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1999).

While the rollout of commendable policies and legislation is in place to prioritize social and economic opportunities for poor women, the gaps remain with implementation and patriarchal institutions that historically marginalize women (Raniga & Ngcobo, 2014; Sewpaul, 2013; Turok, 2010). In fact with little access to microcredit and savings schemes in South Africa, poor women who are dependent on state social grants and who reside in low-income communities bear the brunt of dire poverty and are subject to the exploitative rates by money lenders or having to resort to transactional relationships as survival strategies (Raniga & Mathe, 2011; Raniga & Ngcobo, 2014). Group or cooperative economic development projects provide a valuable network for women who are attempting to supplement their household incomes received from menial state social grants (Raniga & Ngcobo, 2014). These economic development cooperatives provide women with the opportunity to not just supplement and protect their livelihoods but may become part of a long-term support system that reduces vulnerability. Proponents of the liberatory function of social protection schemes argue that such economic development cooperatives serve as a springboard for other forms of individual and communal human capacity development (Midgely & Piachaud, 2013). Joining an economic development cooperative may not only serve to increase levels of self-esteem and self-worth for poor women but through the process of working together in a self-help group; a system of group management can create opportunities for wider socioeconomic change and self-empowerment.

Cooperatives are a form of economic development that is cost effective, efficient, and relatively easy to administer (Department of Trade and Industry, 2012). The policy directives focus on “creating an enabling environment for cooperative enterprises which reduces the disparities between urban and rural businesses and is conducive to social entrepreneurship.” The policy’s combination of group structure and individual reward fits well with the predominant global neoliberal economic ideology and the importance attached to bottom-up community initiatives and active engagement of civil society. Cooperatives currently play a visible role in poverty reduction strategies in transitional economies. However, critics maintain that these cooperatives continue to operate in a disabling environment, which ignores the structural roots and inequalities created at a global level that makes poverty sticking female-headed households in particular (Global Agenda, 2012). Basic fiscal theory highlights that a desire to minimize risk is a key element of human economic self-reliance. Despite the clear association between poverty and women’s vulnerability to gender discrimination, cooperative development projects are heralded in transitional economies as a key intervention strategy to promote localization of economies and sustainable livelihoods (Midgley & Piachaud, 2013; Swanepoel & De Beer, 2006). This is explored further in the discussion on globalization from below.

Globalization From Below: Hope for Localization and Sustainability of Economic Development Cooperatives

Ensuring the sustainability of cooperative economic development projects is often as elusive a goal as poverty eradication in communities. In true social democratic spirit, the economic activity tends to be decided upon by the group members who are motivated to work in group projects. In a model of working with group cooperatives for group or individual financial gain, the issue of interhousehold relations of power, social cohesion, and rights are rarely addressed in empirical studies. The way that these individuals or groups relate to socioeconomic structures within and outside their geographic boundaries particularly to other household and kinship structures is an underexplored area of research. Yet, paradoxically these economic development cooperatives fundamentally affect women’s access to economic resources, education, land, microcredit, and labor in the first economy. The real costs of cooperatives include the stresses and strains of maintaining group cohesion and the susceptibility of the weak and vulnerable members dropping out of the project (Panhurst, 2002). Problems within cooperatives and issues of social exclusion are rarely addressed in the assessments of the sustainability of cooperative economic development projects.

It is thus useful to explore the conceptual idea of “globalization from below” as put forth by Ife and Teseriero (2006). Proponents of leftist thinking aptly argue that “globalization from above” which has been largely about the exclusive interests of the powerful controllers of the global economy (which is undemocratic and unaccountable) has been to the detriment of women and their access to the labor market. Swanepoel and De Beer (2006) expand on this view of globalization from below and reveal that it seeks to implement a form of globalization that is democratic and participatory and that is directly aligned to the “bottom-up” empowerment approach of local people (Raniga & Simpson, 2011; Weyers, 2011). The process of globalization from below aligns with what is happening to some extent through advocacy groups such as the antiglobalization movement. Given the development of information and communication technology, women support groups have used the Internet to share common experiences and to seek expertise to join in global action campaigns regarding issues of social justice and human rights. The Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development (2012) acknowledges the unequal consequences of such global, political, and economic ideologies; has resulted in high levels of human rights violations, increased poverty, and inequality both in the Global North and South; and advocates for a “new world order which makes a reality of respect for human rights and dignity and a different structure of human relationships” (p. 1). The Agenda strengthens the commitment and profile of social workers to make a foundational contribution to social development policy formulation and implementation. As social workers, we can no longer be satisfied with merely mitigating the negative effects of poverty, inequality, and unemployment in our daily practice when many of these development problems are associated with neoliberal economic policies.

For social work practitioners, globally and locally, this commitment forms the basis for enhancing a human rights and citizenship-based egalitarian empowering and transformative agenda. Dominelli (2004, p. 252) poignantly notes that “becoming rooted in a locally applicable context but one that is universally acknowledged underpins social justice and human rights for all citizens.” In so doing, social workers need to continuously acknowledge, recognize, confront, and address pervasive oppression and economic inequality of female-headed households and thus link women on the basis of their common humanity and to create opportunities for them to drive their own economic development process. Dominelli contends that “without such action social workers would not be doing their job, but would be exacerbating the very problems that they have been asked to solve by ‘clients’, employers and the general public” (p. 185).

Conceptual Debates on Sustainable Livelihood and ABCD Approaches to Poverty Reduction

ABCD and sustainable livelihood frameworks can provide a valuable organizing framework for social workers seeking to reduce the feminization of poverty and promote the liberatory function of social protection policy (Raniga, 2015). This is enshrined in the developmental social welfare paradigm, where low-income communities are encouraged to set up self-help economic development cooperative projects as endeavors to improve their social and economic profile and reduce poverty (White Paper for Social Welfare, 1997). The central premise of this article is that poor women who are dependent on state social grants have the capacity to drive their own economic development process by identifying and mobilizing existing (but often untapped) assets and resources within and outside their own residential communities, thereby creating economic opportunities that will assist them to break the cycle of poverty. Writers such as Kretzmann and McKnight (1993), Patel (2008), Lombard (2008) identified five major assets and resources necessary to achieve sustainable livelihoods in households and that will ultimately contribute to building stronger and socially cohesive communities. The first asset is human capital that includes work experience, skills, knowledge, and creative capabilities of people. The second asset is natural capital that refers to resources such as access to land, water, agriculture, and minerals. The third asset is physical capital that includes food, livestock, jewelry, tools, and machinery. The fourth asset is financial capital that refers to money earned through working in the formal or informal sector, savings in the bank, or benefiting from state social grants. The fifth asset is social capital that was conceptualized by Putnam (2000) as social bonds, voluntary associations, and quality of relations among people within communities.

The combination of ABCD and sustainable livelihood practices attempts to link the micro- and macrolevel contexts in which households seek their livelihoods. The approach is structured on the principle of people centeredness, holism, and dynamism and principles connected to the developmental welfare paradigm. Utilizing these five sets of assets, households adjust to their physical, social, economic, and political environments through a set of livelihood strategies designed to strengthen their well-being (Ife & Tesoriero, 2006). The contexts in which households operate may involve a number of threats that could render them vulnerable to negative livelihood outcomes. These can include periodic droughts, floods, economic shocks, conflict and civil unrest, and the illness and death of household members. Households are viewed as being sustainable if they can adjust to such threats without compromising their future ability to survive shocks to their livelihoods. Swanepoel and De Beer (2006) make an important point that in low-income communities such as informal settlements, economic development cooperatives, organizational resources, and positive social networks are systems that may assist poor households to increase livelihood security and reduce vulnerability. The researcher is of the view that ABCD and sustainable livelihood frameworks can provide a valuable organizing strategy for social workers who are seeking to increase human capital, natural capital, physical capital, financial capital, and social capital of poor women who reside in low-income communities in South Africa (Raniga, 2014).

Method

Bhambayi like other informal settlements in South Africa developed during the apartheid period. Situated in one of the most impoverished regions in KwaZulu-Natal, Bhambayi faces high rates of unemployment, inequality, and HIV and AIDS, especially among female-headed households (Raniga & Simpson, 2011). It was established to house communities forcibly removed from their rightful homes, designated as an area for one “population group,” and actively prohibited major economic initiatives which, in particular, prevented women from entering the first economy and succeeding in the second economy. The past two decades have seen a scourge of unemployment, the “detoriation of the physical living conditions” (Raniga & Simpson, 2011, p. 79) and the devastating effects of the HIV and AIDS pandemic thus a clear need for an integrated economic development strategy for female-headed households in the community emerges. In November 2014, the Senzokuhle arts and craft club was formed, which comprised 11 women who were motivated to enhance their individual bead- and craft-making businesses. The women were of the view that the economic activity would increase due to the team effort. The majority of the women in the Senzokuhle club were isiZulu speaking and have lived in the community for more than 20 years. It was not surprising that they were heads of their households and that they were dependent on state social grants and often had to deal with surviving on tenuous income strategies. A milestone for the Senzokuhle arts and craft club was that in September 2015, they obtained registration with the Cooperative Development Unit of the Department of Trade and Industry.

This article draws attention to the connections between sustainable livelihood frameworks, ABCD strategies, and community economic development cooperatives. Using participatory action research (PAR) methodology, a key objective of this study was to gain insight into women’s reflections of ABCD and sustainable livelihood framework in the implementation of an arts and craft cooperative in Bhambayi, North of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Three key themes distilled from the data are deliberated: positive contributions to human capacity development, supportive intersectoral collaboration, and striving for economic self-reliance as strategies to mobilize and sustain cooperative economic development projects and the implementation of ABCD and sustainable livelihood frameworks in practice. This article contributes to the body of knowledge in two foundational ways: providing a nuanced understanding of the economic function of social protection policy from the perspectives of women and secondly by encouraging academic debate about the significance of ABCD and sustainable livelihood frameworks in social work practice.

Participatory Action Methodology

Consistent with the objectives of this study, PAR methodology guided the data collection process as it offered the researcher an opportunity to “systematically understand the contradictions that keep the poor poor, and to partner with the poor to develop empowering action strategies to address these contradictions” (Morris, 2006, p. 138). Proponents of critical and transformative methodologies note that PAR endeavors to engage the participants in a process of consciousness rising regarding their oppressions, which is the intent of the research process (Baines, 2007; Morris, 2006). This study endeavored to remedy power dynamics between the researcher and the participants through engaging the 11 women involved in the Senzokuhle arts and craft cooperative in the conceptualization of the research design, data collection, and evaluation phases of the research process. Baines (2007, p. 21) indicated that this method “provides researchers with the opportunity to change the power dynamics of the research situation and to provide transformative solutions to problems encountered.” In so doing, the research process in this study focused on enhancing skills and human capacity development of the women, thereby enhancing self-confidence, self-determination, planning, and implementation of the Senzokuhle arts and craft economic development cooperative in the Bhambayi community.

Sample

Purposive, availability sampling was used to guide the selection of the women for this study. In July 2014, the researcher met with 25 women who were involved in implementing their livelihood activities as a means to support themselves and their families (Raniga & Ngcobo, 2014). Eleven of the women expressed an interest to work as a team to form an economic cooperative. Hence, four key phases comprised the selection process which was guided by Baines (2007), organizing framework for conducting PAR. Phase 1 entailed three 4-hr training workshops with the 11 women from the Senzokuhle club on understanding the registration process of cooperatives, sustainable livelihood and ABCD practices, team work, and budgeting skills. Evidently, ABCD and sustainable livelihood framework provided the scope for reflection beyond technical–rational responses to lift the women out of poverty and, instead, offered “an alternative belief that research skills should be in the hands of organisers themselves” (Pyles, 2009, p. 108). Phase 2 entailed engaging in several meetings with stakeholders such as the ward councillor, the development officer of the Department of Social Development, and the 11 women from the Senzokuhle women’s club about the objectives of the study and the ideological position of the researcher (Marlow, 2011). Phase 3 comprised mainstream experimentation where ABCD practices (collecting stories, asset mapping, and linking networks for economic development within and outside the community) and sustainable livelihood practices (business management training, budgeting skills training, and marketing skills) were incorporated in the implementation of the Senzokuhle art and craft economic development project with the women over a period of 18 months. Phase 4 comprised the evaluation phase that consisted of 11 in-depth interviews and 3 focus group sessions with the women to reflect on their community work experiences of implementing the arts and craft cooperative development project using ABCD and sustainable livelihood practices.

Three qualitative methods were used to collect the data: minutes of team meetings, in-depth interviews, and focus group sessions held with women from the Senzokuhle arts and craft cooperative development project. Verbal and written consent was obtained from the women to tape record interviews and the focus group sessions. Baines (2007, p. 108) notes that “action research which is grounded in feminist research declares that the researcher needs to create empathic connections with participants and be sensitive to how gender experiences and power relations permeate the research process.” Data were collected by the researcher and one postgraduate student who had been working in the community for 18 months. The advantage of this was that the student and the researcher had well-established relationships in the community and this prolonged engagement contributed to the trustworthiness of the data . Trustworthiness was further enhanced by the multiple data collection sources (focus groups, interviews, and document analysis), peer debriefing (the women, the student, and the researcher met weekly), and member checks (monthly meetings were held with the community development officer and the women to discuss findings). All the interviews, focus groups, and training workshops were conducted by the postgraduate student in isiZulu, so it is possible that some meaning may have been lost in the translation from one language to another. A further critical part of the research process comprised secondary data generated through a literature review on the feminization of poverty and policy analyses, which focused particularly on the interface of social protection policy, gender, and economic relations.

Data Analysis

The process of data analysis comprised the following three steps as put forth by Morris (2006). The first step comprised ideological analysis of the findings in relation to relevant policies and literature. Second through the empowerment and capacity building process, the women were engaged in consciousness rising about gendered oppression in the community (Raniga & Ngcobo, 2014) and the potential for economic empowerment through their involvement in the cooperative development project. Third and consistent with PAR, the researcher endeavored to democratize the research process by not just making the transcripts of interviews and focus group sessions, minutes of team meetings, and training material available to the participants but to give them a safe space to reflect on the transcripts as well as the emergent themes which are discussed in this article. The study obtained ethical clearance from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) Human and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee in June 2013.

As an ongoing study, this is the first of a series of articles in which descriptive and intervention results are reported. It is thus important to note that this study represented a limited sample of 11 African single mothers from an impoverished community in KwaZulu-Natal and does not represent other provinces or population groups residing in contemporary South Africa. This clearly warrants further qualitative research to be conducted with a mixed race profile of female-headed households across provinces and similar transitional countries to explore the economic function of social protection policy.

Results

Three themes, which could begin to generate an ABCD practice and sustainable livelihood culture in community work practice, distilled from the data: positive contributions to human capacity development, supportive intersectoral collaboration, and striving for economic self-reliance.

During the in-depth interviews held with the women, it was evident that the women perceived the experiences of implementing the art and craft cooperative using the ABCD and sustainable livelihood practices in Bhambayi as positive and that it served to enhance their own confidence, knowledge, and skills about facilitating and managing economic development projects. In particular, the women commented that ABCD tools such as asset mapping, compiling a resource inventory in the community, and relationship building were valuable. Additionally, the art and craft cooperative provided the women with the opportunity to engage in a process of continuous personal and group reflection. They spoke about acknowledging their own potential to own and contribute meaningfully to the project even though they were faced with many obstacles of registering the project as a cooperative, coping with minimal economic resources and balancing home and work responsibilities.

Some comments shared by the women in the focus groups were:

Being involved in the co-operative gave me hope to continue participating and co-operating with the group members. For the first time I got to learn positive things from women in our community

I learnt that I could use my sewing and bead-making skills to change my life and the community.

I have grown up in Bhambayi and know how it is to struggle for food and survival.

The training workshops gave me hope to deal with poverty problems in Bhambayi.

The arts and craft co-operative helped me understand other women who had similar problems to mine and taught me how to work in a team.

I felt very happy to be part of the co-operative as I felt like I am learning a lot changing for the better.

For social work practitioners, a crucial step to embracing ABCD and sustainable livelihood practices is to acknowledge that both these organizing frameworks provide a problem-solving frame for planning and implementing cooperative economic development projects (Department of Trade and Industry, 2004; Ife & Tesoriero, 2006). This study corroborates Sen’s (1999) argument that by focusing on the capabilities, the vital human, physical, financial, and social capitals that already exist in low-income communities, poor women would be able to realize their human capacity development. It is clear from the women’s comments that subscribing to democratic values of self-reliance and self-help in the group was crucial and they were able to benefit in terms of increased knowledge and skills as well as their own commitment and cooperation to each other in the project. Sen (1999) states that the significance of sustainable livelihood and ABCD models is the opportunity for local people to claim back economic power and what was evident from the voices of the women in this study was that the tools provided them with a different kind of opportunity to maintain group solidarity and reduce economic dependence on the menial income received through state grants.

Furthermore, ABCD and sustainable livelihood strategies provided the framework for the women who were dependent on state social grants to confidently value indigenous knowledge, drive their own economic development through utilizing their own bead-making and sewing skills, and their inner strengths and untapped associations within and outside the community (Ife & Teseriero, 2006). Sadly, an area that has been overlooked and given scant attention in development literature is human capabilities, valuing indigenous knowledge systems, and the liberatory function of social protection policy (Ife & Tesoriero, 2006; Midgley & Piachaud, 2013). The findings of this study corroborate Mtshali, Raniga, and Khan’s (2014) assertion that indigenous knowledge systems have the potential to positively contribute to the sustainability of community-based economic projects. In the in-depth interviews as well as the focus group sessions, the women expressed gratitude for the positive networks and open and egalitarian manner of working with the students and academic staff from the university. This is elaborated in the discussion of the theme on supportive intersectoral collaboration.

Enhancing community and stakeholder networks and partnerships in low-income communities is a pivotal part of translating ABCD and sustainable livelihood strategies into practice (Mathie & Cunninghman, 2005; Patel, 2008). The women revealed in the training workshops that they learnt to value the existing stakeholders that already provided valuable services in Bhambayi. During the planning phase of the arts and craft cooperative, the women engaged with the community development officer from the Department of Social Development, the Department of Economic Development and Tourism, and the social work team to successfully negotiate the registration of the cooperative in terms of the Department of Trade and Industry (2004). Additionally, the international associations with social work academics, practitioners, and students from Germany and Finland which were collaborations beyond Bhambayi were perceived as valuable to fund and market the products made by the women. Baines (2007) makes an important point that since research partnerships are power based and complex, elusive imbalances between the research partners are seldom eradicated. In this study, power differentials were neutralized as there was a critical awareness by the researcher to balance the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders involved in the arts and crafts cooperative (social work students, researcher, and women in the Senzokuhle club). The benefits of this triadic relationship are manifest in the supportive opportunities to enhance women’s potential to own and sustain their economic development cooperative in practice (Mathie & Cunningham, 2005).

Additionally, it was positive that the women were able to cooperate with each other and took primary responsibility for negotiating with each partner to provide access to funding sources for the project. Putnam (2000) reminds us that social capital represents a framework for collective action and its starting position is that social networks and relationships are key motivators for taking action proactively.

Some comments shared by some of the women during the interviews were:

We met weekly to work on the bead items and it was good to talk about people who could help us sell our products.

I was excited when we met weekly because I enjoyed the challenge of meeting social workers who were active in other similar projects in their own countries. It gave me a chance to learn and grow from them.

I liked the idea that we were not told what to do but we were left to take ownership of our project.

In the training workshops conducted in Phase 1, the women were encouraged to work independently with minimal interference from the social work students and the researcher. This gave the women the opportunity to help them reflect on the taken for granted assets in their community and to encourage other existing cooperatives to network in Bhambayi. This critical reflexivity on intersectoral collaboration helped the women demonstrate their openness to new ways of accessing support from existing, yet untapped partnerships within the Inanda region and strategic business networks were formed with other small microeconomic cooperative projects. The mobilizing of such associations enhanced the sharing of resources, knowledge, and skills, which enhanced the marketing and tangible sales of products in the arts and crafts economic development project.

Clearly, the sentiments shared by the women reflect that by “thinking and acting locally and globally” (Ife & Tessiero, 2006), they were able to make globalization from below a reality. Another important theme that the women identified as enhancing financial capital through sustainable livelihood and ABCD practices was striving for economic self-reliance. This theme is discussed further below.

It was an advantage at the outset of the action study that the 11 women in this cooperative were skilled bead accessories makers. Prior to the establishment of the cooperative, many of the women were implementing their individual livelihood projects. This involved making neckpieces, wrist bangles, waist belts (both decorated and plane) pairing with ankle wears, and head “belts” are pairing with wrist pieces. In the focus group meetings, the women stated that the motive to establish the cooperative was that “we think that if we can, we will be able to develop more easily then individually.”

It was a milestone phase for the women when the arts and craft economic development cooperative was registered with the Cooperative Development Act. The women were really grateful that the registration was achieved through the constant guidance and support (accessing forms from Internet, assisting the women to fill in the forms, and e-mail contact with personnel in Pretoria) that they received from the UKZN student social workers and academic. All the women of the art and craft cooperative were single mothers who were unemployed and dependent on state social grants for their survival. Through the prolonged engagement during the research process, it was amazing to observe the resilience of the women and the drive to own the economic development process. This project provided the women with an option not just to supplement their household income through selling their bead work but to mobilize often untapped human capital, financial capital, social capital, and physical capital from within and outside their community.

Some of the sentiments shared by the women in our focus group meetings were:

I am a bead maker and I support my family with this beadwork. I will be very happy if in this project we can get sponsors and traders who will order big amounts of bead accessories so we can be able to support our families

My daughter is studying at the university because of my bead selling job.

We sell on weekends in most cases, and that’s when we get busy which if we can be successful in this project we can work every day.

I have school going children that I support with CSG and do bead to increase my monthly income, but I cannot guarantee every month that all beads will be sold.

It was also a positive outcome that the arts and craft cooperative increased the food security for the women and their families involved in the study.

Some comments shared by the women during the interviews were:

I don’t have to worry about finding money to buy enough food for my children every day.

The bead-making project helps me to make more money than the child support grant that I get from government every month.

I gave up my temporary job to be part of the bead-making cooperative. I am happy because now I don’t struggle to feed my children healthy food and buy them school clothes.

Discussion and Implications for Practice

This article is an endeavor to provide insight into women’s economic experiences through the implementation of an art and craft cooperative project using ABCD and sustainable livelihood strategies. The central premise of this article is that poor women who are dependent on state social grants have the capacity to drive their own economic development by identifying and mobilizing existing but often untapped assets within and outside their residential communities, thereby creating opportunities to break the cycle of poverty. This study highlights that banking on human capacity development; ongoing business skills training; building partnerships and collaborations within the community; and linking with local, national, and international agencies outside of the community were useful ABCD and sustainable livelihood practices for sustaining the art and craft economic development cooperative. It is important for social workers to embrace that ABCD and sustainable livelihood practices are capable of adequately satisfying poor women’s self-defined economic needs and securing them against high levels of poverty and unemployment. On the basis of these conclusions, it is recommended that transformative social development interventions should include the establishment of a cooperative network forum to assist women to strengthen networks and lobby for training and funding to sustain their projects. In additional, national social protection policy and regulatory changes should include access to low-interest loans from the private sector to assist poor women to gain control over socioeconomic challenges. The outcome data also suggest that empowerment training workshops should be facilitated by social workers from the National and Provincial Department of Social Development as well as nongovernmental sector to create awareness of the registration and benefits of cooperative projects. Finally, I suggest that social workers lobby the Departments of Trade and Industry and local government structures to strengthen access to physical, financial, and human capital to assist with the sustainability of cooperative projects.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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