Rhodes University’s Community Engagement (CE) participated in a unique international European Union funded Common Good First digital project in Norway and Scotland.
Director for CE Ms Diana Hornby and Sharli Paphitis have just returned from project team meetings on this digital project, which will link community projects in South Africa to each other and to higher education institutions around the world using a web-based knowledge bank and innovative digital storytelling solutions.
Led by GCU Director of Digital Collaboration Julie Adair, the Common Good First team will identify community projects and work with them to promote their objectives online and to investigate how the academic network can input innovative approaches to social change.
The consortium includes representatives from six South African universities, as well as partners from Denmark, England, Iceland, Norway, Spain and Scotland. The project’s EU officer from Brussels and a representative from the Scottish Government’s Department of Social Enterprise, Social Innovation and Social Investment, who are contributing funding to the initiative, were also present.
The aim of the meetings was for the team to plan the digital storytelling modules, which are to be piloted at Rhodes University and the University of South East Norway; to develop the approach for project selection across South Africa; and to consider the logistics of the platform built, which will take place in Cape Town early next year.
Earlier this year, Common Good First won a distinguished Ashoka U Cordes Innovation Award in celebration of its community partnerships. Ashoka U is a global network of universities and colleges, which focuses on social innovation, to identify, display and connect social impact projects to each other.