IASSW Grant for Projects in Social Work Education
Keeping the History of African Social Work alive
: ASWEA seminar documents
Final Report
Written by:
Dr. Linda Kreitzer
University of Calgary
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
In partnership with the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa (ASSWA) executive committee
Table of Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….2
Rationale and Purpose of project………………………………………………………….3
Description of the implementation process………………………………………………..3
a. Finding the documents……………………………………………………….……..3
b. Collaboration with the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa……….....4
c. Copyright permission………………………………………………….……………4
d. Funding the project……………………………………………………...………….5
e. Collection of documents…………………………………………………..………..5
f. Printing and tidying of documents…………………………………….……………5
Outcomes of the project…………………………………………………...………………6
a. Challenges to the project………………………………………………..………….7
Conclusion - Future work with the documents………………………………...………….7
Appendix One………………………………………………………………………..……8
Appendix Two…………………………………………………………………..……….12
Appendix Three………………………………………………………………………….13
Appendix Four………………………………………………………………………..….14
Introduction
This project, Keeping the history of African social work alive: ASWEA seminar documents, began when I facilitated a Participatory Action Research project in Ghana from 2002-2004. The project critically examined the social work curriculum at the University of Ghana in light of colonization, modernization and globalization. During this time the research group were introduced to a body of knowledge that group members had not heard about and they confirmed that they had not been discussed in the social work courses there. This body of knowledge was documents of the Association of Social Work Education in Africa (ASWEA) seminars held between 1971 and 1989. On my return from my work in Ghana in 2004, I searched for these documents and found that most of them were housed in libraries in the United States. In speaking to my African colleagues in subsequent conferences and workshops as well as the executive committee of the newly formed Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa it was confirmed that few, if any, are still in Africa. I also found out that Dr. Yimam, the person behind getting these seminars into document form had passed away.
The fact that these documents were not available to African academics, teachers and practitioners was of grave concern to me and after finding all but four of the documents I wanted to collect, copy and bind these documents and send them back to Africa (See Appendix One for complete set of documents). The ultimate aim was to secure funding for a project in which I could prepare these documents and send them to appropriate Schools of Social Work libraries in Africa. This would give Africans the opportunity to analyze these documents and use them in the classroom. It would also add to the history of the profession of social work in the world, showing that Africa has a history of social work that is worth knowing about. In 2009, money was obtained through an International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) grant to collect, copy, bound and send these documents to Africa. This final report is a record of how this was accomplished and the important contribution IASSW has made in order that these documents could be preserved.
Rationale and purpose of the project
The rationale and purpose of this project was to preserve important African social work documents that could be housed in five regions of Africa, the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa (ASSWA), the ASWEA archives in South Africa and in the archives of the International Association of Schools of Social Work in the USA. The preservation of these documents would enable appropriate teaching to take place concerning the history of social work in Africa and address the imbalance of western social work history that is so often taught in African social work classrooms. Access to these documents would enable African social work academics, practitioners and students the opportunity to analyze these documents. Through reading these documents, social work students and professors would learn about the evolution of African social work and what historical factors have affected this evolutionary process.
Description of the implementation process
This project is the second stage of a four stage process that entails 1) finding the documents; 2) copying, printing and binding the documents; 3) sending the documents to Africa; and 4) analyzing the documents (See Appendix Two). In describing the process of implementation I will use these stages as my focus.
Finding the documents
Between 2004 and 2007 I was able to find all but four of the documents in this series of ASWSEA seminars. I found most of them in United States libraries and more than once there was only one copy available. I also found reference to these documents in Asamoah (1995), Midgley (1981) and Yimam (1990). My first job was to find out if ASWEA still existed and if not who would take over the copyright of these documents.
Collaboration with the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa
In July 2007, I met with the newly formed Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa (ASSWA) executive committee in Durban, South Africa at the IASSW conference. I discussed the overall project with them including the eventual analysis of the documents. The committee was in full support of the project and committee members were given the task of trying to find the four documents that I couldn’t find. They agreed the IASSW grant for projects in social work education would be a good place to find funding. In the meantime, Prof. Mwansa would look into the copyright issue. A sub-committee on the archiving of ASWEA documents would be formed with Dorothee Holscher, Linda Kreitzer, Ms. Afia Mugambi and Prof. Mwansa on the committee. It was also agreed that Dorothee would approach Wits historical papers archive about serving as the main depository of the ASWEA archives in South Africa. Once the funding had been secured then ASSWA would determine which universities in the five regions of Africa would be sent the copies. In the meantime, Linda Kreitzer would develop a plan for obtaining funding to copy and print the documents and a plan for the analysis of the documents by Africans living in Africa.
Copyright permission
Prof. Mwansa was able to secure copyright for the documents and an official letter was sent to Linda Kreitzer so that she could proceed with copying and printing the documents (See Appendix Three).
Funding the project
A grant proposal was sent to IASSW in 2008 for funding for the project and the amount of $4,000USD was secured in 2009. The International Small Project Committee asked that I consider revising the budget and instead of the printed version of the documents, that we scan them onto CD’s and send them to all African schools as well as the Minnesota Archive for the IASSW. A subsequent letter was sent to the committee asking them to reconsider this suggestion and a case was made for the need to have printed copies of the documents as well as DVD’s of the documents. This was accepted by the committee.
Collection of documents
Once funding was secured, I found the documents and ordered them from the University of Calgary interlibrary loan department. From May 2009 until January 2010, I ordered three documents at a time due to the fact that they could only be out for a period of two weeks. During those two weeks, I spent most evenings at work copying the documents.
Copying and tidying of documents
When each of the documents arrived I copied each page. As each of the documents was a bound copy, I had to put each page of the document on the top of the glass so it could be copied properly. In order to avoid black marks around the edges of the copies, I increased the size of the page so that minimal marks could be seen. Many of the document pages that I received were marked up but the biggest issue was that they had been printed double-sided and the paper that was used was so thin that both sides came through on the other side. Therefore, each page had to be tidied with white-out. This was a painstaking task but an important one. Another issue concerning the printing of the documents was that two of the documents I received had pages missing. Fortunately, the interlibrary loan staff was able to find another copy of the document and have that library’s staff scan the missing page and send it to me. This took a lot of time but eventually I am sure that we have all of the pages for each of the documents. Some of the print was very light on some pages and I had to go over words that didn’t show well with a pen so that people could read the print. After each document was copied and before the library copy was returned another check was made to be sure that all the pages were there. This whole process took much longer than I thought, however eventually they were all copied and tidied and ready for printing and binding.
During this time, I kept in contact with the ASSWA sub-committee giving them up-to-date information of how the project was going.
Outcomes of the project
Once I had the documents ready, I took them to McCallum Printing. We had fourteen sets of the documents bound and there were six volumes in a set. We had 100 DVD’s make as well (See Appendix Four). I was extremely excited to see these bound copies and DVD’s as this has been a concern and passion of mine since 2004. The fourteen bound printed sets and DVD’s will be sent to Africa at a later date. ASSWA need to determine who will get these documents, however a bound set will be sent to Wits for the ASWEA archives. A DVD will be sent to Minnesota to the IASSW archives. I have submitted a proposal for a grant to secure money to send them to Africa. The shipping costs were much more than I anticipated so extra money was needed for this purpose.
Challenges to the project
There were many challenges to the project that I have explained above. In particular the amount of time it took to copy, tidy, print and bound the sets. However, I can say that the documents are in great shape and are readable. We are still missing four documents,
# 1, #2, #4 and #5. If these can eventually be found a seventh volume could be added to the six that have been printed. The $4,000USD will cover the most of the cost of the printing and bounding of the sets and the scanning of the documents. However, it will not cover part of the shipping that was allocated in the original budget.
Conclusion
According to IASSW’s mission statement, projects funded through IASSW are to “develop and promote excellence in social work education, research and scholarship…as well as support and facilitate participation in mutual exchanges of information and expertise”. This project will give the opportunity for African academics, practitioners and teachers the opportunity to use indigenous historical documents concerning the evolution of social work in Africa for teaching and research instead of relying solely on western documents and articles. I am excited to move on to the fourth stage of this overall project in which Africans will have the opportunity to analyze these documents and write about them, thus supporting the need for more indigenous knowledge.
Appendix One
ASWEA Documents
Document Title Year Place Main themes
1986 Ethiopia Association For Social Work Education in Africa. 21 pages. Libraries: Library of Congress; Baker & Taylor Inc Tech Serv and Prod dev.
1 unknown Lakota An Effort in community development in the Lakota Sub-prefecture.
2 1972 Community Services, Lakota Project Methodology.
3* 1972 Ethiopia The Important Role of supervision in Social Welfare Organization. 8 pages
4 1972 The use of films in social development education.
5 1973 Ethiopia Guidelines for making contact with young people in informal groups in urban areas.
*Compilation of case studies 1973 Compilation of case studies in social development in East Africa. 464 pages
Libraries: Stanford, Calif.; Yale; Northwestern, Illinois; University of Illinois, Urbana; Boston University
*Compilation of case studies 1974 Compilation of case studies in social development in West Africa. 159 pages
Libraries: Stanford, Calif.; Yale; Northwestern, Illinois; University of Illinois, Urbana; Boston University
6* 1974 Lome - Togo Relationship between social work education and national social development plan. 2nd ASWEA conference. 69 pages
Libraries: Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Northwestern University, Illinois; Michigan State, Michigan; Baker & Taylor Inc. Tech Serv and Prod dev., North Carolina; Columbia University, N.Y.; Hunter College, N.Y.; Case Western Reserve, Ohio; Bibliotheque Universitaire de Metz, France.
7* 1974 Ethiopia Curricula of Schools of Social Work and Community Development Training Centres in Africa. 127 pages
Libraries: Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Boston Univ. CT.
8*
1975
Ethiopia
Directory of social welfare activities in Africa. 3rd Edition. 126 pages
Library: Northwestern Uni., Ill.
9* 1975 Ethiopia Report of ASWEA’s workshop on “Techniques of teaching and methods of field work evaluation”. Proceedings of the Debre Zeit Workshop. 85 pages
Libraries: Northwestern Univ., Ill.; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; University of Illinois, Ill.
10* 1976 Douala, Cameroun Techniques d’ Enseignement et methods d’evaluation des travaux pratiques. 121 pages.
Library: Library of Congress
11* 1976 Ethiopia Social realities and the response of social work education in Africa. 3rd ASWEA conference. Also titled Realities and aspirations of social work education in Africa. 127 pages
Libraries: Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Michigan State University, Michigan; Case Western, Ohio.
12* 1977 Ethiopia The role of social development education in Africa’s struggle for political and economic independence. 3rd ASWEA conference. 145 pages
Libraries: Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Northwestern, Illinois; Boston Univ, CT; Michigan State University, Michigan.
13*
1978
Ethiopia
The development of a training curriculum in family welfare. From the ASWEA expert group. 115 pages
Libraries: Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Northwestern, Ill.
14* 1978 Ethiopia L’Elaboration d’ un programme de Formation en benetre familial. 127 pages. Libraries: Library of Congress; N.Y. public library res libr.
15*
1979
Lusaka, Zambia
Guidelines for the development of a training curriculum in family welfare. 207 pages
Libraries: Northwestern Univ. Ill; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
16*
1979
Lome, Togo
Principes directeurs pour I’etablissement d’un programme d’etude destine a la formation aux disciplines de la protection de la famille. 183 pages
Libraries: University of Calif., L.A.; Yale; Boston Univ.; Harvard; Michigan State Univ.
17* 1981 Ethiopia Social development training in Africa: Experiences of the 1970’s and emerging trends of the 1980’s. 4th ASWEA conference. 143 pages
Libraries: Stanford, Calif.; University of California, L.A.; Joint Bank Fund Library, Washington D.C.; Boston Univ, Mass.; Michigan State, Michigan; Columbia University, N.Y.
18* 1982 Ethiopia Survey of curricula of social development training institutions in Africa. 2nd edition. 399 pages
Libraries: Yale Univ; Library of Congress; Northwestern; Indiana Univ; Michigan State Univ; Columbia Univ.; N.Y. public library res libr, N.Y.
19* 1982 Minia, Egypt The organization and delivery of social services to rural areas. 201 pages
Libraries: University of California – L.A.; Joint Bank Fund Library, Washington D.C.; Northwestern University, Illinois; Boston University, Ma; Michigan State University, Michigan; Columbia University, N.Y.
20*
1985
Ethiopia
Training for social development; Methods of intervention to improve people’s participation in rural transformation in African with special emphasis on women. 110 pages
Libraries: Yale University, ct; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Northwestern University, Ill.; Baker & Taylor Inc. Tech Serv & Prod Dev. North Carolina; New York Public Lib. Res libr. N.Y.
21* 1989 Ethiopia Social development agents in rural transformation in Africa. 200 pages
Libraries: Stanford; Yale; Northwestern; Library of Congress; Boston Univ; Michigan State Univ; and others.
* Document is available through libraries noted in the table.
Association for Social Work Education in Africa (1986). Addis Ababa: ASWEA Publication. French is AESA
Dates are the published dates and not the dates when the seminars were given.
Libraries – These are where the documents can be found.
Appendix Two
Stage One
July 2008 – May 2009 Stage Two
May 2009 – January 2010 Stage Three
February 2010 – May 2010 Stage Four
May 2010 – August 2011
Meeting with executive committee of ASSWA for leadership, support and participation in this project Obtaining documents through interlibrary loans. Obtain funding through the small project grants, University of Calgary to send the documents and DVD’s to Africa Prepare a 3-year proposal grant for the analysis of the documents. A sabbatical, from January 2011 to June 2011, will be taken in which I will go to Africa to work with the ASSWA committee on the proposal
Copyright permission granted Copying the documents and tidying them up in preparation for printing Send the documents and DVD’s to Africa and to IASSW archives
Library search of documents Obtaining funding from IASSW to print, bind and scan the documents
The Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa (ASSWA) is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote excellence among schools of social work on the African continent. It forms part of a global network comprising two mother bodies, the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and various other membership bodies. ASSWA and its professional counterpart, IFSW-Africa, have been constituted to represent African interests in this context.
The Association for Social Work Education in Africa (ASWEA), organized in 1971, was a non-profit organization dedicated to social work education in Africa. Between 1971 and 1990, ASWEA seminars were held with documents written up about each seminar. ASWEA is no longer in existence and ASSWA has now taken over all publications by this organization and has copyright to them.
As President of ASSWA, I give permission for Dr. Linda Kreitzer to copy the all ASWEA seminar documents in order that they can be printed and bound for student and faculty use in Africa. I also give permission for CD/DVD’s to be made so that these documents can be viewed on the computer.
Sincerely,
Dr. Lengwe-Katembula Mwansa
President of the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa
P/Bag 0022
Gaborone, Botswana
Appendix Four
Copying the documents
The six volumes and the DVD
One of the French documents
One of the English documents
Another English document
Six volumes and the DVD
DVD
Reading the documents
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