The importance of social work roles in disaster risk management in Zimbabwe

Dickson Machimbidza (), Louis Nyahunda () and Jabulani C. Makhubele ()
Additional contact information
Dickson Machimbidza: Department of Social Work, University of Limpopo, South Africa
Louis Nyahunda: Department of Social Work, University of Limpopo, South Africa
Jabulani C. Makhubele: Department of Social Work, University of Limpopo, South Africa

Technium Social Sciences Journal, 2022, vol. 27, issue 1, 717-726

Abstract: This study was aimed at exploring the efficacy of social work roles in disaster risk management in Zimbabwe in the face of climatic changes. It was carried out in Binga district, Matebeleland-North province using the qualitative methodology and a case study design. The study sample was comprised of 8 practicing social workers. Snowballing and purposive sampling techniques were used to select these participants. Data were collected through in-depth interviews using an interview guide. Thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the collected data. It was found that social workers play essential roles before, during and after disasters. On disaster preparedness, it was established that social workers assume roles of educators, community workers and disaster planners. Moreover, it was found that they play the roles of case managers, administrators of social protection and counselors during the disaster response phase of disaster risk management. Subsequently they also act as advocates, development facilitators as well as monitoring and evaluation personnel in the disaster recovery phase. As per the findings, the study recommends that social workers be recognized as essential in disaster risk management at both policy and practice level. Further, there is need to enhance social work training education for flexibility and contextual application of social work knowledge in the field of disaster risk management for quality realization of green social work in Zimbabwe.

Keywords: Social work; Disaster risk management; climate change; Zimbabwe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://techniumscience.com/index.php/socialsciences/article/view/5554/1988 (application/pdf)
https://techniumscience.com/index.php/socialsciences/article/view/5554 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tec:journl:v:27:y:2022:i:1:p:717-726

DOI: 10.47577/tssj.v27i1.5554

Access Statistics for this article

Technium Social Sciences Journal is currently edited by Tasente Tanase

More articles in Technium Social Sciences Journal from Technium Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tasente Tanase ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).