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UCT Global Citizenship: Leading for Social Justice (Global-CLSJ) is an extra-curricular programme providing you with an opportunity to engage critically with contemporary global debates and to reflect on issues of citizenship and social justice. While voluntary and not credit-bearing, the programme will be recognized on your academic transcript as a UCT Short Course. This course is free for students – there are no course fees as the money comes from the VC’s fund.
MODULE 2: THINKING ABOUT VOLUNTEERING: SERVICE, BOUNDARIES AND POWER
UCT has a strong volunteer ethos and many students coming to UCT every year commit to undertaking voluntary community service. However, because timetables are already full, and volunteering takes up a lot of time, we seldom stop to think about what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what impact or result our volunteering might have for our community partners. For instance, as a volunteer, have you ever asked yourself: Is there a difference between charity and development? Are there different approaches to service? And which am I doing? Am I really making a change, or just perpetuating inequality? Is relationship-building with communities worth investing in? Is 2 hours a week of volunteering enough? Shouldn't UCT do more about education in South Africa? And is a concern about social justice an important part of this?
If you want to think through these and other questions with fellow student volunteers while engaged in community service, this opportunity is for you, no matter what faculty. Thinking about Volunteering offers an informal and reflective learning space to think critically about the why, the how and the what of the community service you are doing, while you are doing it.
Thinking about Volunteering has 2 parts: a community service component and a learning component. The community service part requires a minimum of 15 hours of service spread across the semester and you will need to work with your volunteer organization to ensure that you find a way of logging these hours. As you are already volunteering, this part of the programme is not new for you.
Doing, learning and reflection: The Experiential learning experience. Through guided facilitation and reflection, you'll use your experiences as a volunteer to generate knowledge about the community and make sense of your experiences. The learning part happens in 2 ways: in face-to-face group sessions, as well as online. We’ve developed some innovative and exciting new web-based tools to enhance your learning experience in this course.
Because the focus of Thinking about Volunteering is on learning from and through your experience, the face-to-face sessions are the starting point for dialogue and reflection. Secondly, each session will raise a few key themes already identified by students from their experience of volunteering. Thirdly, readings, where appropriate, will be suggested as a follow up from the group sessions. Readings and other learning resources will be mounted on the course Vula site to access in your own time, to discuss with your tutor or to reflect on in your blogs. Drawing on these reflections, you will be asked to submit 2 short reflection papers (maximum 1000 words) over the course of the semester. This is not for grading but rather to give
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you feedback on how you have made sense of your experiences and reflections as you go along.
The 6 main themes we will look at in relation to your volunteer experience include:
Self and serviceAs a way of starting we will look at why each of you is doing voluntary community service, what it means to you, as well as some of the challenges that you have faced. How do these challenges and experience impact on feelings about yourself, the community, and the issue of voluntary work more broadly?
Service in contexts of inequalityHere we will unpack some of the factors that shape community service in different contexts, in particular questions of poverty and inequality. Through this we will try to look at alternative ways of viewing our relationships to communities and the boundaries we often have to navigate in these volunteer experiences. This will include exploring community assets and different kinds of knowledge.
Paradigms and ethics of serviceHere, we will start to ask questions about the different ways volunteering can be understood. What is the difference between charity and social change? Is one inherently good and the other inherently problematic? What has social justice got to do with this, if anything? How do each of us understand ourselves in all this?
Development: understanding relationships and processesOne of the words we often use to describe the volunteer work we do as ‘development’ – community development, self development, and even social development. What does ‘development’ really mean? What kind of process is it, with what kind of outcomes? How do relationships fit into this?
Understanding OrganizationsOur volunteer experience is mediated by the organizations we work with. How do organizational approaches, structure and culture limit or expand our opportunities for service? How does power work within organizations? What are some of the unique challenges faced by student-run organizations? Who are some of the organizational stakeholders?
Sustaining new insightsA key challenge in developing new insight is finding ways to sustain this. How can we continue to find ways of engaging when we leave UCT (in work, in service, in relationships)? How can we keep on learning? We will explore some questions around this as the final reflection.
As the final outcome of this course, we will also look at how we can represent what we have learnt to a wider audience through online media and face to face presentations.
SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES
The UCT Global Citizenship programme will begin in Week 1 of the second term and will run to the end of the third term with a closing ceremony at the beginning of September.
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SCHEDULE OF SESSIONS
WEEK DATE & TIME TOPIC ACTIVITYTERM 2Week 1 Programme
Orientation: Mon 11/4 (5-6.30pm)
Orientation: Globalization Citizenship and Social Justice
Workshop/welcome
Week 2 Tues 12 or Wed 13 Apr or Thur 14 - TBA
Computer lab training - Orientation to various online learning tools
Working through Vula site and unfamiliar tools
Week 3 Session 1: Tues 19/4 (5-7pm) or Thurs 21/4 (5-7pm)
Self and Service 2 hr reflection session
Week 4 FREEWeek 5 Session 2: Tues 3/5
(5-7pm) or Thurs 5/5 (5-7pm)
Service in contexts of inequality
2 hr reflection session
Week 6 FREEWeek 7 Session 3: Tues 17/5
(5-7pm) or Thurs 19/5 (5-7pm)
Service paradigms and ethics
2 hr reflection session
MIDYEAR VACATIONThere will be opportunity during the vacation to participate online and to engage with course tutors.TERM 3Week 1 Programme
Reorientation: Mon 25/7 (5-7pm)
GC Programme event Workshop with students across both courses
Week 2 Session 4: Tues 2/8 (5-7pm) or Thurs 4/8 (5-7pm)
Development: understanding processes and relationships
2 hr reflection session
Week 3 FREEWeek 4 Session 5: Tues 16/8
(5-7pm) or Thurs 18/8 (5-7pm)
Understanding organizations
2 hr reflection session
Week 5 Session 6: Tues 23/8 (5-7pm) or Thurs 25/8 (5-7pm)
Sustaining new insights going forward
Reflection on semester
Week 6 Programme Closing: 1 or 2 September (5-7pm)
Service, social justice & active citizenship
Global Citizenship: final event
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To complete Module 2 of the Global-Citizenship Programme, you would have to:
Engage in a minimum of 15 hours community service over the semester Attend the 6 face-to-face reflection sessions Submit 2 short reflection papers (maximum 1000 words) Create and participate in the online activities Communicate with others and your tutor in between sessions
To enroll for Module 2 of the UCT Global Citizenship: Leading for Social Justice –Thinking about Volunteering: Service, boundaries and power – please complete the registration form and return it to [email protected]. There are only limited spaces available.
Please note, there is no charge to the student – the costs of this programme is sponsored by the VC’s Strategic Fund.
For further details about the programme please contact one of the following:
Programme and course co-ordinator: Janice McMillan [email protected]
Tutor: Jen van Heerden [email protected]
Administration: Janet Small [email protected]
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