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Community Engagement Awards

The Community Engagement Awards is an annual evening of celebration, recognising a year of excellence in Makhanda’s community engagement space. The Awards is an opportunity to acknowledge and share our pride in the students, researchers, community organisations and the university community for their dedication to building meaningful relationships and embodying social change.

The annual award ceremony is a small event that celebrates the heartbeat of Community Engagement and the organs that keep community engagement growing and thriving in Makhanda. At this event, we take a moment to recognize and acknowledge those who are act to build bridges through interventions aimed at the public and transformation of our town and beyond. These awards take place towards the end of each year after our active citizenship programmes have ended for the year.  RUCE has hosted this event every year from as far back as 2012, and believes it is an important moment encouraging volunteers to take ownership of the Community Engagement space. The event also serves as a moment to reflect upon the past year, enjoy the successes and heal from the challenges. The event brings together volunteers and student leaders from across our citizenship programmes, as well as early engaged researchers and the community partners who make it all possible. The Awards are also an opportunity to reaffirm the student leaders and volunteer managers of our programmes, all of whom go above and beyond the calls of duty throughout the year, to ensure the best possible experience for everyone involved in the project.

There are five award categories:

  • student volunteer
  • student researcher
  • hall or residence
  • sports club or society
  • community partner of the year

Volunteers, community partners, RU halls or residences, sports and societies who embody the values of community engagement are eligible for awards based on their involvement in CE activities throughout the year. CE participants and partners are encouraged to consider the criteria at the start of the year, and to nominate themselves or deserving peers and collaborators for an award. 

Nominations open before the awards and are assessed by the Rhodes University Community Engagement team. Nomination forms can be found on the website and emailed to Anna Talbot by 16 September 2022. Nomination forms can be found below.

 

Past Community Engagement Award Winners and Event Booklets  

 

Nominations for Community Engagement Awards

You can nominate students, halls or residences, sports clubs and societies, and community partners who have done outstanding, well organized, curriculum based community engagement work linked to Academic Departments. You can also nominate yourself.

We're looking for nominees who:

  • are dedicated, creative and showed leadership initiative when demanded of them
  • contribute to body of knowledge that informs community engagement practice
  • do academic activity/research that has mutually beneficial outcomes
  • has promoted the principles of good community engagement practice

 

Use these forms to nominate yourself or others for one or more award categories. Please note the criteria for each category on the nomination form as well as the closing date for applications. Please ensure that you submit a detailed motivation as the selection committee relies ONLY on the information that is provided on the form.

Note that strong applications are NOT based on the number of nominations received, but rather on the quality of the motivation. 

 

Nominations open: 4 September 2023

Nominations close: Friday, 15 September 2023

 

Nomination forms: 

 

For more information contact: Anna Kinsler at a.talbot@ru.ac.za

Last Modified: Thu, 07 Sep 2023 15:38:05 SAST