This week, community engagement practitioners from diverse nationalities, sectors, institutions and organisations are coming together in Makhanda to discuss the past, present and future of community engagement and its scholarship.

The Community Engagement Conference is considered an opportunity for these stakeholders to reflect on their experiences and projects, learn from their peers and colleagues and to discuss the development of community engagement and the communities that form part of these experiences. 

This year is the 8th Conference held in Makhanda since 2015. The  purpose of this year’s conference was to highlight the importance of sharing the narrative of community engagement (CE), focusing on its origins, significant milestones, impact, and future prospects.

“This is the time to tell a good story about CE, about its genesis, its milestones, impact, and futures,” Rhodes University's DVC of Academic and Student Affairs, Professor Mabokang Monnapula-Mapesela, urged.

Prof Andre Keet, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Engagement and Transformation at Nelson Mandela University and the first keynote speaker, noted the substantial progress made in the field of Community Engagement, describing the conference a reminder to positively reflect on how the field has come a long way with a reinvigorated spirit emerging in our institutions. 

“This particular decoloniality demands a form of knowledge hospitality, unconditional hospitality, open to a knowledge that you do not yet know,” he emphasised. 

A key event of the day was the Panel Discussion, Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement in the South African Context. This dialogue is a pivotal moment for the sector, contributing to establishing a national framework for CE standards. 

Panellists, which included Dr. Phetiwe Matutu, CEO of Universities South Africa (USAf), RUCE Director Di Hornby, Bibi Bouwman, Dr Marisol Morales and Darren Lortan who is chairing this contextualisation process, highlighted the need to creatively utilise existing resources within the country rather than waiting for large financial investments. The necessity of addressing the challenges in tying the various aspects of CE together, which he identified as the core purpose of the conference, is inherent in this process. 

Providing an interesting perspective on engaged scholarship, Sizwe Khoza of the NRF (National Research Framework) South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement shared their framework for CE in Higher Education Institutions. 

With significant shifts in knowledge production, the role of universities, and the relationship between science and society, the NRF has adopted the Framework to support its Vision 2030 of research for a better society.

Valuable insights into the present of community engagement, and to how the policies and research manifests in the realities of communities, were provided by community partners. GADRA Education and Makhanda Circle of Unity reflected on a major event on the RU120 calendar that took place earlier this year - the Makhanda Education Summit and how diverse stakeholders came together in the name of human-driven development. 

The Lebone Centre’s Cathy Gush described how through partnerships and engaged citizenry, their organisation has been contributing to a literacy ecology to address the disaster that is early childhood and foundation phase literacy across the country. 

Day two and three of the conferences promises a full programme of insightful and engaging dialogue and debate.