‘Combating Unfavourable Conditions’: Experiments in Scientific Social Work and Community Development in the South African Railways, 1935–50

In 1997, the South African government issued a White Paper on social welfare, 2 which outlined a radical reorientation of welfare policy. The new policy was situated within the context of the Reconstruction and Development Programme adopted by the Government of National Unity in 1994 and included among its primary objectives a shift in emphasis from specialised, therapeutic social welfare to developmental welfare. 3 Some aspects of this new orientation reflected trends in other countries, but significantly within South Africa it had already emerged as the model of choice for non-official social welfare programmes of various organisations broadly aligned against the National Party government organisations such as the United Democratic Front and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. According to Professor Leila Patel, these 'grassroots social development initiatives' represented a 'protest against the formal welfare system, and at the same time aim[ed] for more equitable, democratic and appropriate alternatives'. 4