Overview
True sustainable community development can only be achieved if communities are full partners and drivers of development processes and not merely receivers or actors. A bottom-up approach should focus on ensuring credible consultation processes and strengthening capacities, in line with development aspirations, to implement a project. Community consultation should be part of the design phase of an intervention by utilising existing social networks throughout the process. Activities should be selected to ensure that community members are active participants. The design should allow input from stakeholders with the focus on achieving sustainable development as the end goal − not mere community participation. A strategy like participatory action research allows for the inclusion of local stakeholders from the development through execution of a project, including monitoring and evaluation processes.
The team
Prof Christi Niesing – Leader of the research area.
Current research projects
Social Greenhouse™: With experienced researchers and project managers at AUTHeR, the Social Greenhouse™ can develop innovative solutions grounded in evidence-based practice. The Social Greenhouse™ presents five clusters of social innovations, developed through a rigorous methodology and presented by experienced researchers and project managers.
LIFEPLAN®: The LIFEPLAN® programme addresses poverty among the most vulnerable through human development and life-skills training to improve their wellbeing in health, nutrition, and choice. LIFEPLAN® is based on interdependent relationships from the intrapersonal to the interpersonal, household, community, and societal levels. Current research includes developing a self-assessment toolkit to help participants track personal growth throughout their personal development journey.
WIN platform: The WIN platform is an umbrella project with a strong emphasis on building inter-sectoral partnerships to holistically improve rural health and well-being. The project has grown in the past few years, with other faculties from the NWU joining the Health Sciences disciplines to empower and improve resource-poor communities through intersectoral partnerships. In these partnerships, students have had the opportunity to prepare for their professions through work-integrated learning and community-benefiting workshops, training, and interventions.
Study with us
When enrolling in our MHSc in Transdisciplinary Health Promotion or a PhD in Transdisciplinary Health Science, you can set your research focus on sustainable community development. We have a number of research topics to choose from, or we support the realisation of your own ideas.
Additional resources & -links (Click here)
For further information, contact Prof Christi Niesing.