Women-Led Change: Community Engagement and Rural Development in Uganda

About

This course takes place in African Rural University (ARU), Kagadi, Uganda.

While Uganda is in need of motivated people to contribute to its development, it struggles to provide relevant quality education and decent work to the youth. More and more young people graduate from Higher Education, but opportunities on the labour market are scarce. Many refer to entrepreneurship for which they have to learn new skills.

African Rural University (ARU), a women only university, combines theoretical learning and innovative instruction with field practice for its graduates to work with rural people improving their lives, transforming their communities, and increasing their capacity for self- generating and sustainable change. Working on sustainable change implies taking into account climate change in rural development mitigating it through appropriate technologies.

In line with the tradition of the summer schools of the UNESCO chair on ‘Lifelong learning, youth and work’, the participants of the summer school are invited to engage in community action research on the spot. They will get to know the surrounding community and the way of working of the university and its graduates in theory and practice through workshops, visits, interviews and discussions in and around the university. They will meet lecturers, speak with students, sit together with families and observe rural communities. They will be challenged to develop ideas on themes such as community engagement, rural entrepreneurship, climate change, student well being, women as change agents, and action research. These ideas will be turned into workshops with participation of community members on the last day of the summer school.

Course leader

Josje van der Linden (Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Groningen )

Target group

The summer school is designed for students, lecturers, researchers, practitioners of any gender.

It is expected that the participants have a sufficient command of the English language to actively participate in the discussions and to present their own work in English.

Course aim

At the end of the summer school participants will be able to:

- Conduct community engaged research;
- Formulate the role of women as change agents in a developing context;
- Explain the challenges and perspectives of community oriented higher education;
- Share insights on the Ugandan context regarding relevant quality education and decent work;
- Collectively create knowledge on ‘women-led change, community engagement and rural development’;
- Communicate and collaborate across cultures.

Workload
Upon successful completion of the programme, the Summer School offers a Certificate of Attendance that mentions the workload of 40 hours (28 hours corresponds to 1 ECTS) including preparatory work and report writing. Students can apply for recognition of these credits to the relevant authorities in their home institutions, therefore the final decision on awarding credits is at the discretion of their home institutions. We will be happy to provide any necessary information that might be requested in addition to the certificate of attendance.

Fee info