My teaching and learning, as well as research, embed community engagement as a fundamental component.

In South Africa, community engagement and service learning are included in policy documents such as the Green Paper on Higher Education Transformation (1996) (Department of Education, 1996) and the White Paper on Higher Education (1997) (Department of Education, 1997). The White Paper highlights the need “to promote and develop social responsibility and awareness amongst students of the role of higher education in social and economic development through community service programmes” (Department of Education, 1997:15). In addition, the Department of Education encourages education institutions to become civic leaders through active citizenship among students. This recognises that students should understand social values and community needs (Bender and Jordaan 2007).

My community engagement focuses on:

Teaching and learning 

I have implemented socially responsive course design. My teaching and learning effectiveness can be viewed through my student's success story. 

Research

• • My PhD was community-focused to empower diabetic patients to use mobile applications to improve their diabetes self-management and

  • To assist students, I have worked on creating inclusive learning environments by piloting the data-free Moya Application.

Community Outreach

• • Philippi Village  - we will continue engaging with this community by working in five key areas where they need assistance.

  • Black Soldier Fly Startup Farming for Sustainable Agriculture in Low-Resource Communities - To address Sustainable farming challenges at Philippi Village. 

  • I have project-managed two Women's Day initiatives. In 2021 we focused on empowering entrepreneurs through e-commerce. In 2016 we focused on empowering female students to enter Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) fields by teaching them how to code, build websites and allowing them to engage with inspirational females in the area.  I hosted the hackathon where participants were taught problem-solving skills and competed for prizes by building a software solution prototype for women-related challenges,

  • I have applied to the Equal Rating Innovation Challenge on behalf of the Bridging Application and Network Gaps group that reached the semi-finals out of 98 submissions from 27 countries and

  • I was involved in Africa Code week where I taught students and parents how to code at Maitland High School.

I believe that my community engagement is aligned with the University of the Western Cape’s (UWC’s) 2035 vision of a "keen focus on the public good and transforming lives..."