Abstract
M.A. (Social Work)
Poverty is perceived by various authors to bea challenge in African countries,
including South Africa. O’Brien and Mazibuko (1998, p. 140) state that poverty “is
characterised by a host of factors, including under-nutrition, unemployment, illiteracy,
and unequal and poor access to health, housing, education and decision-making
resources”. The above-mentioned authors state that these factors both result from and
perpetuate poverty. According to Rogerson (1996), the effects of poverty are seen
more among the black communities, and there is more poverty in the informal
settlements compared to other residential areas.
After 1994, one of the South African government’s key priorities was to eradicate
poverty and the focus was on the improvement of the standard of living and quality of
life for all South Africans. Various strategies and policies were then introduced in order
to alleviate poverty, one of them beingthe introduction of social assistance (Ellis, 2011,
pp. 63-72). According to Triegaardt and Patel (2005), social security in the developing
countries, including South Africa, is very important for poverty reduction and ensuring
a basic minimum standard of living for the people. The above-mentioned authors also
emphasise that there is a need for ongoing monitoring and evaluation of social
assistance as this will help to ascertainif the programme is making any contribution to
the lives of the people and to help keep up with the changing environment.
This study focused on the contribution of social grants to alleviating poverty in an
informal settlement. The research study aimed to assess the beneficiaries’
perspectives on the contribution of social grants to alleviating poverty in an informal
settlement. Some of the objectives of the study were to explore the perspectives of
social grant beneficiaries in Angelo informal settlement on the role of social grants in
their lives and to describe how social grant beneficiaries in Angelo informal settlement
understand the impact of social grants on their poverty-stricken conditions. This
qualitative study was exploratory and descriptive in nature. Ten individual semistructured
interviews were conducted in the Angelo informal settlement using an
interview schedule. Themes were used to categorise and analyse data. The findings
indicated that social grants play a great role in alleviating poverty in an informal...