Old institution meets new technology : GIS for quantifying church roles

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa today is facing many social and welfare problems. Three of which are veryprominent: named HIV/Aids; unemployment; and sexual and/or violent crimes againstwoman and children. With churches being some of the biggest and most influential nongovernmentalorganizations in the country, government is increasingly acknowledging thatchurches have a very important role to play in order to help curb social and welfare problemsin the community. One inhibiting factor keeps churches from playing the role that governmentis expecting of them: the roles and expected roles of churches have not been quantifiedsufficiently.A geographical information system was chosen to help in this process of quantification.Previous studies related to GIS being used by social and welfare services showed that thissoftware give these service agencies a powerful new way to analyse services in relation toclients and the communities in which they operate. The crux throughout the study is theprocess by which it is shown how a GIS can be used and is central from the process of datagathering, storing and manipulation of the gathered data, deriving information from it,through to communicating and visualising the obtained results.Key words: geographical information systems; GIS; ArcGIS; Statistica; MicrosoftAccess; church; NGO; social services; social problems; welfare services; welfare problems;data base; data base management systems; geodatabase; Factor Analysis; quantification

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University