Original Research
A university’s response to people with disabilities in Worcester, Western Cape
Submitted: 18 October 2017 | Published: 24 October 2019
About the author(s)
Jana V. Müller, Ukwanda Centre for Rural Health, Rural Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South AfricaLieketseng Ned, Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa
Hananja Boshoff, Ukwanda Centre for Rural Health, Rural Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa
Abstract
Background: The call for institutions of higher education to foster interaction with communities and ensure training is responsive to the needs of communities is well documented. In 2011, Stellenbosch University collaborated with the Worcester community to identify the needs of people with disabilities within the community. How the university was engaging with these identified needs through student training still needed to be determined.
Objectives: This study describes the engagement process of reciprocity and responsivity in aligning needs identified by persons with disability to four undergraduate allied health student training programmes in Worcester, Western Cape.
Method: A single case study using the participatory action research appraisal methods explored how undergraduate student service learning was responding to 21 needs previously identified in 2011 alongside persons with disability allowing for comprehensive feedback and a collaborative and coordinated response.
Results: Students’ service learning activities addressed 14 of the 21 needs. Further collaborative dialogue resulted in re-grouping the needs into six themes accompanied by a planned collaborative response by both community and student learning to address all 21 needs previously identified.
Conclusion: Undergraduate students’ service learning in communities has the potential to meet community identified needs especially when participatory action research strategies are implemented. Reciprocity exists when university and community co-engage to construct, reflect and adjust responsive service learning. This has the potential to create a collaborative environment and process in which trust, accountability, inclusion and communication is possible between the university and the community.
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