If not you, then who? ?
Volunteerism and volunteer activities form an important part of the student experience and learning at university. Volunteering provides students with opportunities to learn outside of the classroom environment, acquiring essential critical thinking, leadership and interpersonal skills.Through hands on volunteering experience, students are afforded the opportunity to share their skills and learn from peers and community partners. The volunteer experience is a team experience, promoting civic consciousness and critical engagement that assist students to gain a better understanding of their social environment. Contemporary South Africa is complex society, divided along a myriad of class, gender, cultural and economic levels. There are no quick fixes to social transformation; however, volunteering is one way in which students can play a vital role by participating in community support interventions. By volunteering time, skills and creative energy, students can make a difference in their lives and the lives of others.
Good Practice in Community Engagement
Community engagement is a privilege afforded to students and staff by the Grahamstown Community. Students and staff who undertake community engagement in communities around Grahamstown, need to respect this privilege. Engagement is more than outreach, it is must also be accompanied with a critical understanding of context. Community Engagement must be conducted along particular principles and ensure that core principles and guidelines to good practice in community engagement are followed.
RECIPRICAL BENEFIT: reciprocity is an understanding of the mutual give and take necessary in building of relationships with others. Participants in community engagement must undertake activities which create spaces for the co-creation of knowledge, that is relevant and to the benefit of all participants.
POWER: When participating in community development one needs to be aware of the power dynamics between participants. Whether it is between student peers or students and community partners, it is crucial to understand that every person involved in a community engagement project is the locus of different types of power. Participants should guard against eexploitation or exclusion.
MUTUALITY: Participants in community engagement, under take projects as joint collaborators, who work together for the benefit of a shared community. When initiating a community engagement project, we should remember the principle of “working with” community partners and not “for” them. Learning is a mutually beneficial and reciprocal process.
PROJECT PLANNING: The development process to be followed in the initiation of CE projects/ activities should clearly state the goals of the project/activity and how it would be monitored and evaluated. Planning of activities thus need to be done in conjunction with adequate discussion with community partners, considering the long term sustainability of interventions.
ASSET BASED APPROACH: Participants in community engagement activities must be aware of the diverse range of assets that all parties have to offer in engagement. Projects should not only look at needs, but also build on assets already existing within communities. Participants should promote sustainability of engagement and not dependency; therefore it is important that there is community ownership of the development process. This applies to all projects, including project fundraising initiatives, which must be guided by the RUCE Fundraising Protocol and the University’s Fundraising policies.
LEARNING, ACTION, REFLECTION: The Learning Action Reflection (LAR) framework for community engagement is intended to benefit students learning process and self development. Students participating in community engagement are not required to simply act as “hands” but are taken to be mindful persons able to critically engage with all aspects of their engagement. The process of reflection on activities, allows students to grow as volunteers, enhancing their ability to serve their community.
COMMON GOALS: All student teams require a common goal to ensure their year of volunteering bears measurable fruits, whose impact can be assessed. This means listening carefully to all members of the team as well as community partners, is vital in deliberations over projects. The goals of all interventions should speak to the volunteer sites’ development agendas. There should be no coercion from project initiators on community members or staff and students to participate.
COORDINATORS AND STUDENT LEADERS: Co-ordination of CE activities/projects is essential if we want to make a real difference to the communities we engage with as an institution. Communication with student leaders and the SVP co-ordination is vital for all CE activities/projects undertaken with the assistance of the Community Engagement Unit. In order to assess the impact of activities and ensure the well being of all participants, regular communication with the SVP coordinator is vital.
