This is the approach that Diketso Eseng Dipuo Community Development (DEDI), a non-profit organisation, uses in life. DEDI is an organisation based in Hilton that empowers communities through promoting and enhancing the survival, development, care and protection of vulnerable children.
As part of the participant verification stage in the research process, the researchers had an opportunity to visit Thokozile at the DEDI offices where the "magic" happens.
DEDI, Pulane Pitso and Magda Barnard form part of a group of researchers and NPOs that will contribute to the NRF research project. Prof Mabel Erasmus from the Centre for Teaching and Learning is the grant holder.
As part of an NRF project currently running at the service learning section of our Centre for Teaching and Learning, a representative from DEDI, Thokozile Dube, visited the university. She talked to PhD student, Pulane Pitso, and research assistant, Magda Barnard, about the work done by DEDI. Thokozile shared invaluable information about DEDI that will contribute greatly to the NRF project.
This project is aimed at establishing how higher education institutions and the NPO sector can create long-term, research-based collaborative engagements. These engagements will be mutually empowering and enabling through reciprocal knowledge-based activities and capacity-building.