Project description
As part of the Engaged Scholarship Programme, the UFS has decided to launch the Engaged Citizenship strategy through the Integrated Transformation Plan (ITP) to enable students and staff to play a leading role in the development of communities.
To advance engaged citizenship, the UFS Community Engagement Directorate has adopted asset-based community development (ABCD) as a strategy for sustainable community-driven development. Beyond the mobilisation of a particular community, ABCD is concerned with how to link micro-assets to the macro-environment. The appeal of ABCD lies in the premise that communities can drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilising existing but often unrecognised assets, thereby responding to and creating local economic opportunities.
ABCD builds on the assets that already exist in the community and mobilises individuals, associations, and institutions to come together to build on their assets – not to concentrate on their needs. An extensive period is spent on identifying the assets of individuals, associations, and then institutions before they are mobilised to work together to build on the identified assets of all concerned. Identified assets of an individual are matched with people or groups that have an interest or need in that asset. The key is to start by using what is already in the community.
Project content
In line with the ABCD approach, we organise and facilitate training programmes on the following:
- UFS approaches to community engagement;
- UFS engaged scholarship model;
- student residence training;
- central student leadership training;
- student association training;
- student organisation training;
- student faculty council training; and
- academics involved in engaged scholarship.
For more information, contact:
Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele
T: +27 51 401 2822
C: +27 82 401 3279
E: ramahpm@ufs.ac.za
Karen Venter
T: +27 51 401 3732
C: +27 83 310 3715
E: venterk1@ufs.ac.za