Immense beyond imagination, the untamed rainforests of western New Guinea represent a biodiversity hotspot, home to several unique species of flora and fauna. The territory’s astonishing beauty and diversity is underpinned by a stunning array of natural resources. The island is also home to many indigenous communities practicing hundreds of local languages and traditions and depending on their natural environment for maintaining their traditional livelihoods, identity and culture. The territory’s much-contested decolonization process in the 1950-60s led to widespread discontent among indigenous Papuans and gave rise to persistent dissent from Indonesian rule, routinely met with disproportionately violent action by Indonesian security forces. Adding to these longstanding colonial ills and grievances, indigenous Papuan communities also struggle to grapple with inequitable allocation of land and resources, extreme pollution and environmental degradation caused by the mining and palm oil sectors. In the meantime, climate-exacerbated weather events have become more frequent in the region creating new tensions by putting an additional strain on natural resources and thus leading to an increased level of insecurity and inequality. In particular, these challenges have a disproportionate and profound impact on indigenous Papuan women, whose native lands are deeply embedded in their cultural and ethnic identity, and who are dependent on access to land to carry out their prescribed roles. Displacement also puts women at further risk of violence. Adding to sexual violence and displacement experienced by indigenous Papuan women, the loss of traditional lands and resources has been identified as having a singularly negative impact on women as it impedes their empowerment and makes them vulnerable to continued violence. The Papuan experience thus serves as a timely illustration to exemplify how environmental factors, such as resource extraction and climate change, not only amplify vulnerabilities and exacerbate pre-existing inequalities stemming from colonial times, they also give rise to gendered consequences flowing from large-scale degradation and loss of the natural environment.
Het verzuim en de instroom in de WIA als gevolg van een psychische aandoening zijn hoog. Dat komt niet alleen door de aandoening, maar ook doordat werknemers met een psychische aandoening daar vaak niet open over durven te zijn. Ze zijn bijvoorbeeld bang dat collega’s en leidinggevenden hen buitensluiten of dat ze hun baan verliezen, als bekend wordt wat er aan de hand is. Deze angst is terecht want er bestaan veel vooroordelen over werken met een psychische aandoening en er is sprake van stigmatisering. Het gevolg van niet-open erover zijn is echter dat de werkgever er ook geen rekening mee kan houden. Veel medewerkers met een psychische aandoening staan er daardoor alleen voor, lopen op hun tenen of gaan onderpresteren. Eventuele klachten worden daardoor erger. Werkgevers en HR-professionals kunnen daar wat aan doen. In dit artikel bespreken Aukje Smit, Dorien Verhoeven en Tinka van Vuuren de vooroordelen, de benodigde maatregelen en de strategieën om werkgevers (en dus ook HR-professionals) in beweging te krijgen aan de hand van een literatuuronderzoek naar stigmatisering van werkenden met een psychische aandoening
This paper describes the Care4Balance (C4B) system for better facilitating communication and task coordination between formal and informal caregivers, and older adults as care receivers. Field-tests with older adults (n=3) and user studies (n=9) were conducted to evaluate the system and the perceived usefulness of the system. A review of related work and the study findings show that (1) the perceived benefit for the older target group was very low. The main motivation for using the system was triggered by the perceived benefit for their closest informal caregivers; (2) Informal caregivers do not regularly seek help for themselves, and (3) Introducing a C4B-like system is more than solving hardware and usability issues. The study suggests that more flexibility in the organizational structure of formal care (in The Netherlands and beyond) is needed.
