Abstract:
The Reconstruction and Development Programme and the People's Housing Process
were both introduced in an effort to address the existing challenge of providing
housing for low income earners in South Africa. Both these programmes had
intended to empower its beneficiaries in the process. However, there is a lack of
evidence to demonstrate whether this was achieved. The aim of this research was
to determine the extent to which government provided housing compared to selfhelp
housing empowered or further disempowered poor communities. The
objectives of this research were as follows:
to develop an understanding of what empowerment is;
to identify determinants associated with empowerment definitions; to
develop indicators that can be used to evaluate empowerment;
to use the indicators to evaluate the presence, decrease or absence of
empowerment in relation to the two selected study areas in the field
investigation; and
to compare the results yielded from the field investigation in order to draw a
conclusion and respond to the main aim if the study.
A field investigation was conducted between two study areas namely, the Lebone
Development Trust (PHP project) and the Botshabelo 900 Pamper Construction
Project (RDP project). Both these projects are located in Botshabelo, a township
situated in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality in the Free State Province. The
data was collected from a total sample of 50 households in two phases. The
intention of the first phase was to gain the beneficiaries' views concerning what
empowerment means and from their understanding, confirm the determinants that
can be used to evaluate empowerment in this study. These determinants, together
with those identified in the literature review, were used to evaluate empowerment
in the follow-up interview. The results of the study revealed that there were
weaknesses and strengths in both the projects when comparing them with each
other. Though there were no beneficiaries that were disempowered, the
beneficiaries of the PHP project appeared to have been more empowered in some
determinants than the beneficiaries of the RDP project.
