Details of the initiative were revealed by UP’s community engagement manager Gernia van Niekerk at a three-day virtual summit. Organised by the university and the University Social Responsibility Network, the biennial summit allows academics, researchers and practitioners a forum to assess the progress made by partner universities on their social responsibility endeavours.
She said UP started with community service in 1920 following the Spanish flu pandemic and world wide depression.Ventures under the initiative include Moja Gabedi and Reliable House projects, which restructure social environments with serious signs of urban decay around the UP’s seven campuses – in Hatfield, Hillcrest, Groenkloof, Prinshof, Onderstepoort, Mamelodi and the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg.
Van Niekerk said rolling out engagement initiatives for community development purposes enabled a university to understand and deal with various complexities and dynamics.