Impact: Journal of Transformation

The Intersection of Faith and Mental Health

2024-12-24T16:33:29+03:00

This study is a quantitative research investigation into the dynamic relationship between faith

and mental health in the youth within an evangelical urban Christian community in Nairobi,

Kenya. Through an in-depth analysis of existing literature, and data collected from structured

interviews, this research sought to shed light on the ways in which faith principles and mental

health practices intersect. This research explored how different theological frameworks and

community structures influence attitudes towards mental health and the provision of support

needed. The participants were selected through purposive sampling of individuals from the

Youth Ministry of Mamlaka Hill Chapel, which is an evangelical urban Christian community

located within the campus hostel grounds of the University of Nairobi, Kenya. The sample

size involved 54 students drawn from a population of 400 youths who frequent the church.

Key findings highlighted the importance of destigmatizing mental illnesses through education

programs, and the availability of resources for individuals facing mental health challenges

within Christian congregations. While this study was limited to structured interviews, the

findings highlighted best practices and recommendations for promoting mental health

awareness and support within faith-based settings whilst providing insight into the potential

strategies for reduced stigma surrounding mental illness. By acknowledging the

interconnectedness of faith and mental health, the need for collaboration between mental

health professionals, clergy, and congregants is needed to provide comprehensive care that

addresses both the spiritual and psychological aspects of well-being. In conclusion, the

1 Impact: Journal of Transformation Vol. 7 (2) 2024, ISSN 2617-5576

findings from this study underscore the need for targeted interventions to address mental

health stigma within Christian communities and enhance support structures for individuals

navigating mental health challenges. This research contributes to the ongoing dialogue on

holistic well-being and the prioritizing of mental health awareness and support, and the

integration of faith principles in mental health support systems

Community Desire and Potential for Language Development among the Runga Community of Chad

2024-12-24T16:53:18+03:00

This paper examines the sociolinguistic situation of the Runga people group in Chad and the

potential for language development in the vernacular language. Sociolinguistic situation

refers to how elements such as region, class, or other languages affect the use of Runga.

Language development refers to activities such as creating an orthography, reading materials,

and incorporating the language into education or other activities to promote its use. This

paper affirms the importance of vernacular language development as well as showing that

Runga is still a vital language used by many of the members of the community. Based on a

survey conducted by the author during her master’s research, the expressed desires and

opinions of the Runga community are considered and used to come to conclusions about the

viability of language development, specifically that orthography development is desired by

the community, as well as incorporating Runga into the educational system. The state of

literacy and education in the Runga community is considered, as well as examples of other

language development projects among other vernacular languages in Chad that have met with

success, such as among the Daza people.

Predictive Validity of Basic Education Certificate Examination Compulsory Cross-Cutting Subjects in Senior School Examination in Kwara State, Nigeria

2024-12-24T17:56:23+03:00

A justification for using any test result for its intended purpose is the ability of the items to

measure the earlier set objectives which is construed as validity; a psychometric property of a

good test cannot be over emphasized. The predictive strength of the Basic Education Certificate

Examination Cross-cutting subjects in predicting students’ performance in both internal Senior

Secondary School I, Senior Secondary School II, and external examination (Senior Secondary

Certificate Examination) in Kwara State was examined in this paper. The study employed

longitudinal and ex-post-facto design. The population of this study consists of senior secondary

students in Science, Art and Commercial departments that sat for the compulsory cross-cutting

subjects in Basic Education Certificate Examination, internal promotional examination both in

Senior Secondary School I, Senior Secondary School II and as well as Senior Secondary School

Certificate Examination in Kwara State between 2015/2016 – 2018/2019 academic sessions.

Purposive random sampling technique was employed to sample 1200 [712 (59.3%) male and 488 Impact: Journal of Transformation Vol. 7 (2) 2024, ISSN 2617-5576

(40.7%) female] students that have complete records of their scores across the years. Proforma

was used to collect the respondents’ scores and were transformed to continuous form. The Basic

Education Certificate Examination and Senior Secondary Certificate Examination are

standardized examinations; hence the results are assumed to be satisfactory. However, scores

from teacher made tests/internal promotional examinations were standardised (t-score). The

collected data were analysed with simple linear regression. Findings show that the Basic

Education Certificate Examinations were a good performance predictor for the Senior Secondary

Certificate Examinations. The study recommended that the general public and stakeholders retain

their trust in and embrace the Basic Education Certificate Examination as a strong predictor of

students' academic performance.

An Analysis of Connectors in Balanta Narrative Texts

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This paper aimed at analyzing connectors in Balanta language and how their study can be applied

to Bible translation with the special attention given to the narrative texts. This topic was chosen because

connectors’ problems are a crucial issue in Bible translation. Wrong usage of connectors affects the

syntactic relationship of clauses, sentences, and paragraphs, which in turn causes the text to lose accuracy,

clarity and naturalness in the target language. This has become an area of increased concern in many

translation projects in Guinea Bissau. This paper aims at sheding more light on the Bible translation, with

specific reference to the use of connectors in Balanta narratives. Various connectors’ functions in Balanta

narrative were examined with the aim of proposing effective strategies that can be employed by Balanta

Bible translators. The major concern was to determine mismatches in the meaning of the connectors in the

source (Hebrew) and target (Balanta) language. It was found that the Balanta language has a variety of

connectors but uses them less frequently compared to Hebrew which has very few connectors but uses

them more frequently, especially for those with the multifunctional dimensions. Balanta is an Atlantic

Language of the Niger-Congo branch, spoken in Guinea Bissau in West Africa between Atlantic Ocean, 61

Senegal and Guinea-Conakry. Though, there are severals theories used in Bible translation, such as literal

translation, dynamic equivalence, skopos and others, this study proposes the use of relevance theory