Projects Participation

Brief

Steering epistemic access and success of historically disadvantaged students in South African universities

Project role: Academic Partner

Project Aim

To explore the experiences of successful university undergraduate students with a very specific background profile, i.e. students who suffered a considerable degree of marginalisation by virtue of being black, originating from poor families and communities, and who graduated from relatively under-privileged schools in rural and township areas. It also involves those marginalised by virtue of gender, given the lower status of girls compared to boys in those areas.

SOCIAL HARMONY THROUGH NATIONAL EFFORT (SHiNE

Service Learning Food Garden Project:

In this conceptual project, we aim to explore the issue of food security in South Africa how this impacts educational provisioning in primary schools, universities and society in the Nelson Mandela Bay community at large. Food is considered to be one of the basic needs a human being needs in order to survive and thrive. An unsatisfactory supply of, and access to, enough food for one’s daily needs can have far-reaching consequences for growth and development and for a healthy life. In recent times, one of the biggest problems in South Africa today is that food access is not equal for everybody with many people not being able to purchase enough food due to rising prices. Additionally, more people are becoming increasingly anxious about their access to food. This is what is known in the literature as “food insecurity” (Dubois, 2006), with the main cause for food insecurity being identified as poverty.

As such, the Faculty of aims to create food gardens on the South and Missionvale campuses . These food gardens should be an to build camaraderie amongst First Year students while also . Students will take ownership of the project by taking care of the vegetables, learning from one another, and . (Suggestions: , Soup Fridays in Winter or Salad Fridays in Summer.) Food Garden project could be extended to schools at a later stage.