A simple and revolutionary toolbox to help any group create an actual and functioning democracy In this book, Marta Harnecker, with Spanish economist José Bartolomé, shares some of her wisdom on how communities everywhere can gain empowerment. For, when impoverished people became involved in the planning process, they no longer feel like beggars demanding solutions from the state; they become the creators of their own destiny. Set out in two parts; this book first demonstrates the importance of community participants working outside a hierarchy, to allow as much decentralization as possible. The second part of the book centers on the methodology of this process: the various tasks taken on by participants and how, in planning processes over years, they are carried out.

Orphans of Islam portrays the abject lives and 'excluded body' of abandoned and bastard children in contemporary Morocco, while critiquing the concept and practice of 'adoption, ' which too often is considered a panacea. Through a close and historically grounded reading of legal, social, and cultural mechanisms of one predominantly Islamic country, Jamila Bargach shows how 'the surplus bastard body' is created by mainstream society. Written in part from the perspectives of the children and single mothers, intermittently from the view of 'adopting' families, and employing bastardy as a haunting and empowering motif with a potentially subversive edge, this ethnography is composed as an intricate, open-ended, and arabesque-like evocation of Moroccan society and its state institutions. It equally challenges received sociological and anthropological tropes and understandings of the Arab world

Make the most of what today’s technology has to offer in human services education! Distance education presents special challenges to social work education. Using Technology in Human Services Education: Going the Distance provides case studies and practical research on making the best use of this powerful new tool for teaching. Designed for both practitioners and educators, this fascinating book examines the use of technology in education and practice in the field of social work and other human services. Because setting up distance-learning programs can be expensive, Using Technology in Human Services Education suggests ways to reduce the impact on the budget, including setting up a consortium to merge resources with other schools. It also shows how to integrate traditional instructional approaches with the new technologies, how to make use of email and electronic discussion groups, and how to use the Internet to hone practice-related skills. In addition, it covers the current status of the technology itself. Using Technology in Human Services Education: Going the Distance explores ways to maximize the potential of distance education, such as: a framework for designing distance education courses that fully utilize the unique environments these courses offer a discussion of the impact of technological tools in teaching specific course content ways that SACs (Site Advisory Committees) can increase students’ socialization into their new professions ways that students need to be supported in order to feel a connection to a distance-learning program the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to help meet and identify the information needs of a field placement agency Using Technology in Human Services Education offers creative approaches and practical advice for making the best use of the technology. Whatever your level of computer skill, from novice to hacker, this book will give you ideas you can use. No individual or institution interested in maintaining top quality in human services education should be without this book!