The Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Wits University, Mr Kojo Parris, in his keynote address to mark the beginning of Community Engagement Week at Rhodes University challenged the University to do more for community engagement.
“I’m a big fan of Rhodes and I ask this question not to be critical but to be challenging. With more than 7000 people passing through these halls who are going to be the future leaders of this country, should Rhodes University be doing more for community engagement? The people who pass through these passages are core leadership potential which can be socially transformative throughout South Africa and the world. Rhodes University must lead the way in making leadership a core value,” said Mr Parris.
He made three suggestions for the development of community engagement at Rhodes University, including adding social entrepreneurship to the community engagement mandate as a key intellectual construct for driving forward engagement with communities; creating a mandatory leadership course for Rhodians and Grahamstown community leaders; and transforming the site of Makana’s epic struggle into a Social Enterprise Valley.
Highlighting the role community engagement is playing on a global scale in a new social entrepreneurial sphere and earmarking Rhodes University as a potential leader in the field of Higher Education Institution (HEI) research.
Outlining three basic premises of his approach, including that social enterprises are imperative for (South) Africa’s progress, social transformation is necessary for sustained economic development, and Rhodes University must have a competent and patriotic elite who drive development.
Aiming to dispel the classic approach to career choices, where individuals often believe they have to choose between making money and doing good, Mr Parris explained that following a shift in the state system after the Second World War, the scope for the nation state has shrunk, as it becomes increasingly ineffective.
An emerging social entrepreneurial sphere is gaining momentum worldwide, he said, as young professionals are opting to implement their expertise in community engagement initiatives which are financially viable and provide a sense of fulfilment for doing good.
“Talented people are no longer attracted to government or to doing good and not earning any money. This emerging paradigm should not be based on the idea that you can’t build a decent life by doing good. The new political economy is providing exciting new opportunities and it is critical that the talent at Rhodes University is exploited. This presents an exciting new challenge to provide that space for young people where they can engage with this,” he said.
A firm believer in systemic social transformation as preceding economic progress, Mr Parris outlined the importance of social capital in a society fragmented along class, race and political lines.
“The basis for sustained economic growth is a shared set of beliefs. Can we transform as a society if we don’t have social capital? Rhodes University with its close access to communities can play an exceedingly important role and become the leader in addressing these issues. As we see government becoming less able to deliver to the majority of South Africans, we have to ask ourselves, are we on the right track? Rhodes University’s role is to lead these intellectual challenges,” he said, adding that the focus should be on creating sustainable models for enhancing the public good.
Mr Parris is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Leeds, chairman of A4e Africa (www.a4e.co.uk) and Homeless Talk, a newspaper benefitting the impoverished of Johannesburg, co-Founder of TEACH Zimbabwe, African Social Entrepreneurs Network and Social Private Equity South Africa.
By Sarah-Jane Bradfield
Photo: Ettione Ferreira