An Assessment of the Attitudes of Social Service Professionals towards People with Albinism in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Abstract
Social services professionals are agents of change in any society. For many years, people with albinism in Tanzania have faced many injustices and malicious acts like murder, kidnapping, rape, cutting, and selling their body parts. In Tanzania, due to their condition, they have been placed under the category of “people with disability”. It has fallen to social services professionals to be their saviours and protectors, helping them voice their problems and other issues. This study aims to examine the attitudes of social services professionals, their roles, and the precautionary measures taken towards protecting people with albinism in the Dar es Salaam region. In this study, 30 participants were contacted, but only 24 responded, and these were 6 social services professionals from the government, 6 from the non-governmental organisations, 10 people with albinism who acted as volunteers, 1 journalist, and 1 social service professional from an embassy. A qualitative research design was adopted through a semi-structured interview guide. The analysis of these participants’ opinions was carried out with NVivo 12 software. The results of the analysis reveal that social services professionals have more positive attitudes, like acceptance, respect, defence, support, and love, than negative attitudes, which include unhelpfulness, pessimism, and unfairness towards people with albinism. Promoting education, advocacy, and awareness-raising were some of the roles and precautionary measures used towards protecting people with albinism. From the findings, recommendations to the government, non-governmental organisations, social workers, and people with albinism were to bring changes to the education and health sectors. It was realised that self-awareness concept on people with albinism and the challenges facing social services professionals should be examined as an area for further research; this will positively stress and broaden the compassion about people with albinism and how to support them
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References
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