This program endeavours to "take the university to its rightful owners - grassroots communities" and create all-inclusive community ventilation platforms where people at least seven years old have the opportunity to express their views on local development issues. Through reflection circles that are facilitated by students and mediated by peers within the community, issues militating against local development are discussed in a democratic manner and decisions made. The University team of academic staff/faculty and students works closely and co-learns with community-based and run institutions as program implementation proceeds.
In South Africa, successive post-1994 governments have been implementing developmental local government as one of the strategies for achieving people-centred rural development and poverty eradication. Participation of grassroots community members in their own development is a fundamental tenet of this social change thrust. In order to ensure that communities participate in their own development, the Municipal Structures Act of 1998 was enacted. It paved the way for establishing Ward Committees as vehicles for public participation and deepening democracy. The Municipal Systems Act of 2000 then provided a framework for people participation in budget processes and formulation of integrated development plans (IDPs). Despite having all these sound legal instruments and frameworks that promote public participation, involvement of grassroots community members in decision making processes remains largely a pipe dream. Disillusionment in the form of at times violent service delivery protests and formulation of IDPs, which communities usually disown, serve as evidence of the magnitude of this problem. In addition to this, many projects implemented in rural communities often fail because researchers and development practitioners tend to use blue prints which the people invariably never identify with. This reality justifies the urgent need for appropriate community engagement approaches that can help amplify the voices of a wide spectrum of social groups and stakeholders in communities as well as ensure that they take charge and champion their own development.
Development planning approaches applied in most Municipalities regard a community as a homogeneous entity, ignoring the fact that there are different social groups e.g. children, youth, women, the elderly, men and various community leaders, among many other categories of people. All these social groups have unique needs, aspirations and views on issues that affect the development of their communities. They know what their communities want, what is feasible and other related dimensions. Solutions to this state of affairs must be found.
This program is premised on the need for creating grassroots community 'ventilation' platforms and incorporating the needs, views and aspirations of children, youth, women, men and community leaders in various pockets of Vhembe District into development plans. Makhado, Musina, Mutale and Thulamela Municipalities constitute Vhembe District. The aim of thgram is to mobilise and organize grassroots communities in these Municipalities so that they influence the nature and form of IDPs and local economic development strategies. Specifically, the objectives of the initiatives are to:
a) establish effective grassroots community ‘ventilation’ and decision making platforms on poverty eradication and rural development issues; b) carry out situational analyses of poverty, vulnerability and underdevelopment issues inherent in the four local Municipalities; c) nurture a pool of agents of development on how to facilitate participatory community engagement and formulate village and Ward development plans as well as implementing the plans; and d) promote the application of participatory tools when engaging communities during planning and implementation of rural development and poverty eradication initiatives.
The Centre for Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation (CRDPA) at the University of Venda established the project to address the concerns raised above. Participants in the project include staff and students (bother undergraduate and graduate) from across the entire campus. In section 4, the full details on the nature of involvement of students are presented.
This program focuses on entrenching involvement of members of rural communities and their institutions in constructing and driving local development work. The community engagement approach applied is rooted in reflection circles, coupled with the use of the Gibbs Reflection Cycle. The following categories of community members are engaged using various participatory tools.
• Children: 7-10 year old boys and girls; and 11-14 year old boys and girls; • Youth: Both male and Female in High School; and also both male and Female Out of School; • Women • Men • The elderly (more than 60 years old); and • A wide range of Community Leaders & their institutions.
To date, the following participatory engagement activities have been carried out following this approach:
• Comprehensive village-based situational analysis using seven (7) participatory tools; • Mobilization of critical stakeholders, including a full Makhado Municipal Council Resolution adoption of the program; • Village profiling; • Community workshops dealing with communication as a challenge to rural development and poverty reduction initiatives; • Interrogation of the President’s State of Nation Address and national budget speech (including state of the province and provincial budget speeches) by Ward-level stakeholders through facilitated community workshops; • Establishing and strengthening strategic partnerships for rural social change; • Holding separate service delivery-focused workshops focusing on the following issues: Local Economic Development (LED); Education; Water and sanitation; Safety and security; Energy; Health and social development; Roads and Transport; Environment and disaster management; Housing; and Sports, arts & culture.
• Ward-level and inter-Ward workshops focusing on empowerment of: Children; Youth; Women and men; and Community leadership.
• Participatory development of short courses on Community Leadership for rural Development (on-going); • Giving feedback to community leaders: Presentation of consolidated reports to traditional and elected leaders; and • Confirmation of both empowerment and service delivery-related development agenda at village level involving all stakeholders.
All the participating communities have so far adopted their development plans. One of the communities (Masia Traditional Council Area) popularly launched its development plan. Currently, program implementation is concentrating on building social cohesion in order to achieve collective action for rural development.
The following results have been achieved to date:
• In August 2006, Makhado Municipality passed a resolution adopting the project as its own (Municipal Council Meeting Number 40th of 29 August 2006 Item B.52.18.05.06). This showed awareness had been created and commitment to support the project secured; • Winning Silver Award in the National Impumelelo Innovation Award Trust competition for 2007/2008 (http://sadelivery.co.za/files/back_issues/delivery/Edition16/WW_impumelelo3007.pdf); • Capacity development of almost 200 village-level ‘Foot Soldiers’ of social change: At village level, 3-4 community identified and recommended people (mostly out of school youth) continue to receive training, coaching and mentoring on community animation to enable them to facilitate processes and platforms that solicit the views of various segments of local communities; • Institutionalization of the project at the University of Venda through developing a short course on Leadership for Rural Development; • Funding: R3 million (from the University's Executive management) to purchase vehicles and other relevant equipment that would help strengthen program implementation; Also, R4.2 million secured from the national Department of Science and Technology to upscale program work (2009-2011) to other local Municipalities in Vhembe District. Note that the current USD to South African Rand exchange rate is USD1: 6.85 ZAR and • ‘Foot Soldier’-facilitated development of village and Ward development plans that meet the aspirations and needs of children, out of school youth, school going youth, men, women, the elderly and a broad range of community leaders.
This is a new kind of initiative in Limpopo. Training community volunteers as foot soldiers is a unique way of increasing community participation in municipal affairs and improving governance.
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