Science & Society Updates

2010-03-31
The Science & Society initiative of the Reinventing Stellenbosch partnership (and wider Sustainable Stellenbosch programme) aims to mobilise civil society in partnership with the University, Municipality and business sectors around key sustainability challenges for the Greater Stellenbosch Community. The main themes of this initiative include Energy, Water, Waste, Food Security, Biodiversity and Wellbeing. The initiative includes stakeholder engagement, events and campaigns to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration in the wider Stellenbosch. So far, these have been successful through the strength of building networks of individuals and organisations interested in Stellenbosch relevant issues. Specific collaborative community projects within these themes have already begun to emerge including large stakeholder workshops attended by the University, Municipality and wider community that have sparked clean up campaigns, planting of food gardens, awareness programmes in schools, a green jobs initiative and a number of Stellenbosch relevant research initiatives.

This initiative highlights the importance of a commitment to building relationships in the Greater Stellenbosch to address critical challenges facing our community (hunger, poverty, job creation, environmental degradation) and the value of supporting such projects further.

Food Security Programme
A highly successful community food security workshop brought together stakeholders from across the community and several support projects and research areas were identified, including food gardens, community support agriculture (CSA), local food economies and land reform. Further workshops have identified a number of stakeholders for a community food garden in Kayamandi High School that were serve as a community food garden for 100 families, an outdoor classroom for the school and training facility for further food gardens in the area. We are currently meeting with local funding organisations to raise the final funds required for the implementation of this project. We are also running test projects on rooftop food gardens and have commissioned a series of photographs highlighting dietary inequality for the region that will become part of a mobile exhibition.

Waste Campaign
A large waste awareness campaign was run for the month of October in partnership with a local radio station, MfM, in which schools and university residences worked together with the municipality and local community around glass recycling and general awareness on sustainability issues. The campaign was very successful, with strong involvement from the community and local businesses. Events included river clean-ups, schools events, educational programmes, e-waste recycling and various competitions. We are also designing large signboards on recycling awareness that the Municipality will have placed around the Greater Stellenbosch and have launched a project with the Engineering Faculty to have students redesign the shopping trolleys currently used by informal waste recyclers in the streets of Stellenbosch. The University is working with the Municipality on a large Waste to Energy project proposal and has a functional working relationship with the Solid Waste Department through which they would like to continue supporting the work of the Municipality in addressing the solid waste challenges for our community.

Capacity Building Workshops / Green Entrepreneurship
Several capacity building workshops have been held with the local youth council around sustainability challenges and opportunities, with further workshops scheduled next year. The youth (aged 18 – 35) are incredibly dynamic and passionate about community development. We plan to incorporate opportunities for green entrepreneurship training in partnership with other community based organisations in the next few months.